


the boy who cried (wolf)

by jortsbian



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Childhood, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, M/M, Werewolf Richie Tozier, an ode to childhood nostalgia and my attempt at keeping the same youthful vibe as IT (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jortsbian/pseuds/jortsbian
Summary: The following events seemed to happen in slow motion, which would probably have looked cool as fuck if Richie hadn’t been a gangly uncoordinated teen and if it had been a cool action movie instead of real life: the wolf lunged at Eddie. Richie, in a fit of anger and fear-fueled adrenaline, kicked at the wolf as hard as he could. The wolf twisted its head and sunk its teeth into Richie’s leg. Richie’s thoughts turned blank except foroh shit.Eddie screamed something at the wolf and sprayed it in the eyes with his inhaler. The wolf whimpered, released Richie’s leg, and stumbled blindly into the woods. Richie thought anotheroh shitas Eddie scrambled over to him and asked him—something. The world went dark.AKA, the one where Richie's a werewolf and that's theleastof his worries (or maybe not, but sue him for being dramatic, will you?)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 94
Kudos: 307





	1. headlights and werewolves come out of the forest

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first chapter fic i've written in a hot minute so i hope the pacing works well! a lot of the characters tagged don't show up this chapter fyi, but there is some light violence (most of which is in the description) so be forewarned

Derry was a strange town.

Richie knew this as well as he knew his own name, or that Rock Lobster was objectively the best song ever, or that he loved Eddie Kaspbrak. Those were the four truths in his life: his name was Richie, the B-52's were awesome, he was tragically smitten for his best friend, and Derry was fucking _weird_. That maybe said something sad about him fundamentally as a person, but the point was that things happened in Derry that logically should not take place under any circumstances, and everyone just seemed to turn a blind eye. Freak accidents, they called them, or tragedies, or they just went ignored entirely. 

That's what they'd called Georgie Denbrough's death. A freak accident. He'd been playing with Bill in the woods when Bill had turned his back, and when he turned around again, Georgie had all but vanished. When they found him again, he was barely recognizable but for the shredded coat he'd been wearing when he disappeared. Mauled to death, the police report said, probably by a pack of wolves. It was just a case of carelessness, leaving him unobserved. Just an accident.

It didn't matter that Georgie wanted to play hide and seek, or that Bill had been trying to coax him into ending the game when it happened. It didn't matter that there weren't any wolves in Maine. It was just an accident.

At least, that's what the majority of Derry believed. Bill Denbrough, apparently, was excluded from that majority, which Richie was growing more and more tired of by the minute. He thought something was weird, sure, but if he had to hear Bill stutter through another argument that it couldn't _possibly_ have been wolves, it _must_ be something else one more time, he thought he might lose his mind. He was trying not to snap at Bill, he really was, because it had been exactly two months since Georgie's death and Bill was jumpy and strung up like a live wire, but _god_. Richie just wanted to talk about literally any other thing on the planet, but instead they were repeating the same conversation they'd had countless times in the past two months. He bit back a tired sigh.

"I'm just s-saying, wolves d-don't live in Maine. Why would they b-be in D-D-Derry? It d-doesn't make sense. It had to b-be something else that got G-G-G-G—" Bill trailed off, frustration clear on his face. Stan gave him a pointed look.

"The same thing happened last month to Betty Ripsom, remember?" Stan said. "They're guessing that a pack migrated. This stuff just happens sometimes."

Bill shook his head.

"It's not r-right. Wouldn't M-Mike have to take extra care of his sheep if there were wuh-wolves?"

"What else would it have been?" Eddie asked, ignoring the glare Stan shot him. Bill frowned.

"I don't kn-know," he admitted. 

Something about the conversation made Richie want to squirm uncomfortably. He didn't want to think about what could be lurking in the shadows of Derry. 

"Well, Big Bill, I don't think ya oughtta tell tall tales 'less ya got the facts to back 'em up!" Richie cried, throwing on a cowboy Voice that he knew would distract everyone enough to change the topic. As expected, he was met with a chorus of groans and he sighed privately with relief as Stan started talking about something else that Richie didn't bother to pay attention to. 

“Hey, are we still on for tonight?” Eddie asked Richie, lowering his voice just a touch. Richie felt his heart swell at the thought.

“Of course, Spaghetti! Who would I be to leave you all alone on a Friday night?” Richie threw his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, and the answering _don’t call me that_ and _it's Monday, anyways_ was softened by the way he allowed for his arm to stay there.

—

Eddie shuffled uncomfortably. Richie watched as he sucked in a deep breath and scuffed the toe of his shoe in the dirt. He was so obviously nervous that it made Richie's own palms sweat just watching him.

"Not that I don't want to be here, Eddie my love, but is there a reason we're traipsing around in the woods at night?" Richie asked. He hoped his nerves weren't as obvious in his voice as he thought they were, but if the look Eddie shot him was anything to go by, he didn't hide it well.

"Shut up, asshole," Eddie replied, but his glare was softened by the nervous way he held himself. "I just— I have something I want to tell you." But then Eddie fell quiet again, and Richie felt like if he didn't say anything he was either going to scream or tell some terrible joke that could get him slapped, and probably for good reason.

"Look, whatever it is you wanna say, you don't have to, Eds," Richie said, hoping to interrupt Eddie's train of thought. If the way Eddie stiffened was anything to go by, it seemed to have worked.

"Don't call me that," Eddie snapped, and then the tension drained from his shoulders. He sagged but maintained eye contact, and Richie almost believed Eddie could see directly into his soul. Richie opened his mouth to make another dumb comment, but before he could, Eddie said all in one breath, "I, uh, IreallylikeyouandIthinkweshoulddateifyouwant."

Richie gaped. 

"You, uh— what?"

Eddie finally dropped eye contact, choosing instead to fidget with the zipper of his fanny pack and frown at the ground.

“I mean, I kind of thought you felt the same way but please don’t be mad if you don’t or if this is weird or anything but I just thought that the way we hang out is really nice and if you wanted to kiss and stuff that would be really cool but if I’m wrong I’m sorry please don’t be mad,” Eddie blurted. 

“I’m not mad!” Richie cringed at how loud his response was, but it made Eddie look up at him again, so fuck it. “I just didn’t think you were—”

The snap of a branch broke them both out of the awkward spell between them. They glanced around nervously for the source of the sound.

“What was that?” Eddie’s voice wavered as he whispered. Richie was about to shrug and try to play it off when he spotted a pair of—shit, of _glowing yellow eyes_. Directly behind Eddie. And suddenly he could make out the looming figure of what had to be a wolf and he felt like his heart would beat straight out of his chest.

“Get away from there!” Richie hissed, stepping forward slowly. Eddie, brave stupid Eddie, did exactly the _opposite_ and instead turned around and looked directly at the wolf. He let out a strangled shriek and scrambled backwards toward Richie. 

The following events seemed to happen in slow motion, which would probably have looked cool as fuck if Richie hadn’t been a gangly uncoordinated teen and if it had been a cool action movie instead of real life: the wolf lunged at Eddie. Richie, in a fit of anger and fear-fueled adrenaline, kicked at the wolf as hard as he could. The wolf twisted its head and sunk its teeth into Richie’s leg. Richie’s thoughts turned blank except for _oh shit_. Eddie screamed something at the wolf and sprayed it in the eyes with his inhaler. The wolf whimpered, released Richie’s leg, and stumbled blindly into the woods. Richie thought another _oh shit_ as Eddie scrambled over to him and asked him—something. The world went dark. 

—

When Richie woke up, the first thing he noticed was a throbbing pain in his leg, followed by the frantic muttering of one Eddie Kaspbrak. The world blinked back into focus, and suddenly he saw Eddie squatting in the dirt, pressing band-aid after band-aid to the deep sutures on his leg, which bled defiantly around the too-small bandages. Richie pushed himself up onto his elbows and Eddie’s head snapped up.

“Oh thank God, Rich, I don’t—you passed out and I don’t have any bandages big enough to wrap your leg and I wanted to wipe off the blood but it would probably just get dirt in the wounds and the last thing you need is an infection, especially since you don’t know what was up with that wolf and if it had any diseases or anything, and you know how dangerous wolves are after everything with Betty Ripsom and—and Georgie, and I was so _scared_ , Richie, because what was I gonna do if you… I mean, I’m just glad you woke up but you really should go to the doctor because that’s definitely not something that should just be left open or who knows what could happen!”

For as much as Richie’s head was reeling, he tried to keep up with Eddie’s rambling. It made his heart skip a beat in the annoying way it always did when Eddie showed he actually cared for him when he got hurt or did something dangerous. 

“Thanks, Eddie,” Richie said, cutting him off. Eddie stopped abruptly, staring at him with a wide-eyed panic Richie wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. “We should probably head home, though. I think we’ve got bigger bandages at my house that might actually work.”

“Right. Yeah. Do, uh, do you think you can ride your bike? Or should I… I mean, I’ve never let anyone stand on the spokes before but I can try because you probably shouldn’t do too much with your leg and all but if you want to ride your bike that’s okay too, but you really should be careful.”

Richie felt himself flush at the idea. He wanted to say no, to insist that he was fine and could ride his bike perfectly well, thank you very much, but instead what came out was a warbled “sure.” Eddie’s face relaxed minutely, and all Richie could think was _fuck, I am so whipped._

Standing up made it clear that Richie was definitely less fine than he wanted to say he was. He wobbled to his feet and gripped Eddie’s shoulder hard as his leg trembled, blood running down it even with the band-aids. Eddie wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him stumble through the woods, walking slowly down the path. Distantly, Richie was thrilled at the closeness, at the lengths Eddie was going to help him, but presently all he could focus on was the pain that had him limping every step. It felt like it took hours to get out of the woods, and they barely spoke the whole time, tersely focused on the task at hand. He wasn’t sure they had ever spent this much time quiet before.

_Ha, suck it, Stan,_ he thought, giggling to himself, _looks like we_ can _go more than two minutes without annoying each other._

Eventually, they made it to their bikes and let each other go. Eddie hopped onto his bike and then turned to face Richie, a nervous look plastered across his features that reminded Richie of earlier, before he was literally _attacked by a wolf_ , what the _fuck_ was up with that.

“You can get on, if you still wanna,” he said nervously. Richie just smiled and clamored aboard behind him, wincing at the strain and wrapping his arms tentatively around Eddie’s middle to hold on. As Eddie pushed off, all Richie could focus on was the shift of Eddie’s muscles against his chest. Slowly they biked away, leaving the woods, Richie’s bike, and a little bit of the pain behind.

The ride to Richie’s house took longer than usual, but Richie couldn’t find it in him to complain, not when he was sitting on the back of Eddie’s bike and listening to the quiet huffs of breath as Eddie strained to get them across town. It was nice enough that he could pretend to ignore the pain and fear he felt lingering inside of him. As they rode down the street, cold December wind biting at his skin (and ain’t irony a bitch for that?), Richie almost convinced himself that everything was normal.

As soon as the Tozier porch light came into view, Eddie seemed to gain an extra burst of energy. He peddled them furiously down the street and actually put up his stand once he rolled to a stop. Privately, Richie didn’t want to let go of Eddie, and would have wished that the moment would go on forever had he not been in excruciating pain. Like _damn_ , who knew that legs could hurt that much? He certainly didn’t. He was never taking his legs for granted again. 

Richie fumbled off of the bike, trying not to topple onto the ground. Eddie hopped unceremoniously off as soon as Richie was on his feet, shoving his shoulder under Richie’s armpit and hauling him toward the door. He shoved it open with more force than Richie thought was really necessary, but he wasn’t going to complain. Let Eddie be forceful! It was something Richie had been actively pushing him toward since day one.

“That you, Rich?” his mom’s voice called from the kitchen. Richie and Eddie exchanged a glance.

“Sure is!” Richie responded with as much forced casualness as he could, at the same time as Eddie cried, “Can we get some help?”

“Eddie, is that you?” Footsteps echoed through the hallway, and then Maggie Tozier stood in front of them. “Is everything— Richie! What the hell happened?”

“We were attacked by a wolf, Mrs. Tozier, and I think you should take him to the hospital or the doctor at least because I don’t know what kind of diseases a wolf can carry but we had to walk through the woods to get out and it could be all kinds of infected with who knows what and I don’t want you to have to amputate—” Eddie cut his own ramble off with a look of horror. “Oh my God, are you gonna have to amputate your leg? _Shitshitshit_ I didn’t even think about that, should I have put a tourniquet on it?”

Richie was a little bit amazed that Eddie didn’t even seem to care that he just swore in front of his mom. Starry-eyed, he shot his mom a grin, but she didn’t seem to find it nearly as funny as Richie did. Shame, it was always fun when Eddie got so focused that he forgot to be polite as all hell all the time. 

“Eddie, sweetheart, I don’t think we’ll need to amputate anything. I’ll take him to the ER, alright? You can just head home. I’m sure your mother is worried sick about you being out this late on a school night.”

Eddie paled, but seemed to calm down as Maggie spoke to him. _Good ol’ Mags_ , Richie thought. Always knew how to get a situation under control. Finally, Eddie stepped away from him. Richie stumbled at the loss, trying not to let his knee buckle as he suddenly had to support his full weight. Eddie and his mom shared matching looks of concern as he winced in pain, which made Richie feel small in a way that he hated. Eddie hesitated by the door for a moment, staring wide-eyed at Richie like he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Go on, Doctor K!” Richie said, throwing on a Voice he knew would get a reaction. It seemed to work: Eddie’s shoulders relaxed as he rolled his eyes. "You fixed me up pretty good, but now it’s time for me to see the pros. You'll have to tell your mom that I won't be able to visit her tonight. Hopefully she won't miss me too much."

Eddie said, "shut _up_ , Richie," at the same time as his mom sighed, "Richard!" and it was music to Richie's ears.

The car ride to the emergency room was shorter than the bike ride to his house, but without the distraction of Eddie's body in front of his, Richie felt the pain much more strongly. He tried not to wince when bumps in the road jostled him, but in the lonely comfort of the passenger seat, it was easy to remember the terror and pain coursing through his body.

The actual emergency room trip didn't take long, or if it did, Richie wasn't aware of it. The gave him pain medication through an IV practically as soon as he got through the door, and afterwards was all a sort of blur. Distantly, he was aware of the nurse pulling off the many band-aids Eddie had applied and slathering something on it, but his mind just felt empty. Fuzzy, as if someone had taken his mind's glasses off and he could no longer think clearly. The world around him was fuzzy, too, and if he really thought about it he could remember that his mom took his glasses off when he laid down. He wasn't really thinking about it, though. He was just drifting, through time and space, in and out of consciousness, through images of yellow eyes and hulking shadows and sharp sharp teeth that glinted in the moonlight. Was there moonlight? Yes, he remembered, there was—Eddie looked ethereal bathed in it, the brightest the moon had been all month. Damn, what _was_ it that they gave him? He was pretty sure he'd never even _thought_ the word ethereal before, much less used it to describe Eddie. 

(It was true, though. He looked otherworldly, beautiful. Not so different from the _cute, cute, cute!_ he usually was, but at the same time, not similar at all.)

How had he gotten onto the topic of Eddie? He couldn't even remember. All of his thoughts seemed to circle back to him in the end.

Eventually, he ended up back in his mom's car. His head still felt foggy, but the bandages wrapped around his leg were a sort of stifling comfort against the dull ache that was slowly coming back. His mom was tensely quiet in a way she rarely was, and Richie felt oddly nervous that she wasn't laughing or talking at all. 

"'M sorry I got hurt. I didn't really think there were _actually_ wolves in Derry now. We were just hanging out," Richie mumbled, and his mom sighed.

"What were you doing in the woods in the first place? You know that they can be dangerous."

"Yeah, but we needed somewhere private. Eddie needed a place to talk. He asked me…" Suddenly, Richie remembered. He jolted in his seat. "We need to go to his house."

"What? Why?" Maggie briefly glanced at him, eyebrows wrinkling in concern. "Is everything alright?"

"I didn't get to answer him! Please, Mom, it's super important."

"It can wait until tomorrow, Richie, assuming it's not life or death. You'll see him at school."

"But—! Mom. _Mom._ Mags. Maggie. Mrs. Tozier. Listen. It's so important. It is absolutely essential that he knows the answer as soon as possible."

"It's the middle of the night. I'm sure Sonia wouldn't appreciate being woken up. You can wait, Richie. It's not the end of the world."

It sure _felt_ like the end of the world, though. Knowing that Eddie had actually asked him out (him! Richie! It was hard to believe it!) but that he hadn't been able to answer because of that stupid wolf was going to drive him crazy. But eventually, he relented. She had a point. He would see Eddie the next day, and it wasn't like he was going to _forget_ before then.


	2. i found hope in a heart attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Richie deals with the aftermath of the wolf, snow days, and whatever the hell his body is doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from line without a hook by ricky montgomery
> 
> disclaimer: author is from texas and doesn't know how snow days work in places where snow is normal. this took a month to write because i was consulting a bunch of people who are actually from maine to figure out how it worked and i wish that was a joke

Waking up, Richie felt distinctly _weird._ He couldn't pinpoint what it was, exactly, but as soon as he opened his eyes he knew something had to be off. It was overwhelming. Even as he got dressed and ready for the day, he couldn't shake the feeling that something inside of him was different, somehow. Like someone had pushed all the organs in his body an inch to the left, and now he bumped into them while he was just trying to wander through life as usual.

It didn't help that he had the nagging feeling that he was forgetting something, but every time the thought occurred to him, it vanished just as quickly. It was hard to focus on anything other than how _off_ he felt. 

He'd almost forgotten about the night before until he saw the bandages wrapping his calf and remembered _oh yeah, I got attacked by a wolf._ It was strange—there was almost no pain, save for a residual ache that was so small that he barely noticed it until he remembered just what had happened. 

(Was that what he’d been forgetting? It had to be, right? What else would it be?)

Richie was mostly upset to realize that his bike was still at the edge of the woods, which meant his dad had to drive him to school on his way to work. He loved his parents, really—it would be rude not to, when so many of his friends had the shittiest parents on the planet—but the car ride with his dad was awkward at worst and annoying at best. It meant he had to listen to Wentworth hum off-beat to bad songs on the radio when it became clear that he wasn’t sure how to broach the topic of the wild wolf attack the night before. Basically, it fucking sucked.

Finally, _finally,_ he got to school. He thanked his dad quickly (see, he wasn’t a terrible son) and rushed inside. The strange feeling was still lingering just as strong under his skin, like he was in a dream and hadn’t realized it or accidentally rolled around in a bunch of the poison ivy Stan was always talking about and realized it wasn’t so bad, actually, it just sort of tingled and left him feeling like something was weird as all hell. 

Richie usually spent his mornings hanging out by one of his friends’ lockers, but waiting for his dad to drive him meant that he was barely on time without dicking around with his friends. Huffing a long-suffering sigh, he pushed his way through the hallways and fell into his homeroom seat just before the bell rang. Now to wait until lunch to actually have any sort of _fun._

—

"Guys," Richie said as he slid into the cafeteria seat. "You'll never believe who got attacked by a wolf last night."

He was met with 4 glares ( _where was Eddie?_ ) and one mildly condescending "who, Richie?" from Beverly, which was rude, okay.

"Me!"

Bill's glare hardened.

"That's not f-fuh-funny, Richie."

"I'm serious! Eddie and I were hanging out in the woods by the quarry and a wolf jumped out and bit me. He totally scared it off after I kicked it away." He was met with the same glares as before. "Ooookay, fine. I'll show you assholes."

Richie propped his foot on the seat next to him and scrunched up his pant leg, revealing the gauze beneath. Just as he began to unravel it, he spotted Eddie emerging from the bathroom, shaking water off his hands and frowning. Richie grinned and waved at him.

"Spaghetti! Will you please tell these non-believers that we were in fact attacked by a wolf last night before I have to rip off these nice hospital bandages to show them myself?"

Eddie paled. His arm darted forward and then dropped like he couldn't decide between reaching out to Richie and getting as far away from him as possible.

"Are you joking? This cafeteria is full of who knows how many germs and you've got a bunch of deep open wounds! Do you _want_ it to get infected? It's bad enough that you got bitten by a wolf that was probably rabid or something and _wait_ oh my god do you have rabies? Tell me you don't have rabies, Rich, I swear."

Richie grinned deviously. 

"Of course I don't have rabies, Eds. I mean, look at Ben's water right there. I'm not scared—" He clutched at his chest dramatically and blew a spit bubble, letting the drool dribble down his chin. "Get that away from me!"

He made grabby hands at Eddie, leaning as close to him as he could without falling out of the seat. Eddie shrieked and jumped away and then huffed, finally sitting at the table next to Richie.

"Asshole."

Richie beamed, glancing around at the group. Their expressions ranged from annoyed (Stan) to amused (Bev and, to a lesser extent, Ben) to a frown (Bill, duh). 

"You're s-serious?" Bill asked, staring at Richie like he was searching for some indication of deception. Richie gave him a salute.

"Scout's honor. Wouldn't joke about this, Big Bill." Despite the teasing words, he knew Bill understood.

"Can I suh-see?" 

Eddie sucked in a breath.

"Bill…" Stan said, shooting him a stern look. Bill ignored him, keeping up his intense eye contact with Richie. 

Richie shrugged. Couldn't hurt. Despite Eddie's protests, he peeled the bandage away from his leg to reveal—

"What the hell?" 

Richis gaped at his leg. Where he expected cuts to be were thick white scars, raised starkly against his skin. They looked like they could have been months old rather than hours.

"What?" Eddie asked incredulously. He reached out as if he wanted to touch them but left his hand hovering in the air above it. "How did that heal so fast?"

Eddie's fingers finally connected with Richie's leg. He shivered at the touch and blinked slowly at the image of Eddie's fingers slowly running across the scars, tracing them carefully.

"I have a high metabolism?" Richie answered. Eddie shot him a quick look—one of those _I can't believe you actually just said that_ looks—before turning his attention back to the scars. They were ugly and huge and suddenly Richie was oddly self-conscious about them. He yanked his pant leg back down without rewrapping it, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. Eddie pulled his hand back like he'd been slapped on the wrist. 

"So it really was juh-just a wolf," Bill murmured before Eddie could react. The mood turned somber in an instant and Richie shifted uncomfortably in his seat. All of his instincts were screaming at him to _break the tension! Say something dumb!_

"I mean, what'd you expect, a werewolf?" Richie teased. Bill folded in on himself further and Richie flinched as one of the Losers kicked at him under the table. Richie sighed and reached across his lunch to squeeze Bill’s hand in comfort. “Yeah, Bill. It was a wolf. A fucking crazy one, maybe, but just a wolf.”

Bill’s face crumpled. Without words, everyone extended a hand to him, patting his arm or rubbing his shoulders or touching whatever else they could reach in a pure form of comfort. It wasn’t the first time any of them had seen Bill cry since Georgie’s death, but it didn’t make it any easier.

The tension was broken by an obscenely loud growl from Richie’s stomach which made everyone laugh ( _even Bill!_ Richie noted to his extreme delight). The conversation picked back up as if the moment had never occurred, save for a few extra-friendly glances in Bill’s direction. 

Once, Richie caught Eddie giving him a strange look. He couldn’t decipher what the furrowed eyebrows and sharp gaze meant so he just nudged Eddie’s leg with his knee and watched him deflate, tension running out of him so obviously that Richie almost checked to see if he could see a stream of it dripping onto the floor.

He still felt strange, like he’d managed to put his body on inside out and backwards, but he figured that could wait. It was probably just the healing process, right? Nothing to be too concerned about.

(He was forgetting something, he knew he was. He just couldn’t figure out _what_ he forgot.)

As the conversation continued, Richie decided to do some of the things he did best: ignore his problems and bother Eddie. Delegating his issues to Future Richie, he turned to Eddie and shoved one of his blueberries up his nose. The resulting shrieks made Richie laugh so hard that he ended up snorting the blueberry further up his nose, and he spent the next five minutes trying to blow the berry out and basking in Eddie’s undivided attention as he lectured him about the possibility of sinus damage or whatever the fuck it was.

—

Thursday morning, it snowed. This wasn't terribly unusual, considering it was December, but it created a situation that _was_ unusual. Every year in the past, the Denbrough house was the snow day meeting ground, but the only Loser to go inside more than the garage since October was Bill, and the garage didn't have heating. Instead, they'd decided preemptively that the Tozier house was the place to go in case of snow, which was why Richie woke up on Thursday to a pounding on his bedroom door and Eddie's increasingly annoyed voice.

"Richie! It's almost nine in the morning! Wake up!" Eddie cried. Richie sat up blearily and rubbed the last remnants of sleep from his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping _well_ , exactly, but he'd certainly been sleeping hard. Still clinging to his blanket, he grabbed his glasses and shuffled to the door. He pried it open with the hand not currently holding his glasses and the blanket together.

"Hullo?" he mumbled, and Eddie (presumably—he still didn't have his glasses on) sighed heavily. Whoever it was standing next to him—and without the advantage of being short, Richie really couldn't tell who it was—did… something. Richie fumbled his glasses on to reveal Eddie and Ben, faces still flushed from the cold.

Huh. Another change: significantly more Losers would be coming over than the wannabe barbershop quartet they'd had going for them for all of elementary and middle school. Richie gave them a grin that melted into a yawn, and Eddie rolled his eyes.

"Seriously, did you just wake up? What would you have done if school wasn't canceled?" Eddie barely waited for a response before shoving into his room, looking around at the scattered clothing like he'd find something satisfactory. Richie shot a look at Ben, who just smiled and shrugged.

"How did you guys get in?" Richie asked, still fighting the sleepy timbre of his voice. 

"Your parents left the door open," Ben explained. "They must've known we were coming."

"Good thing, too," Eddie said, shoving a pair of pants and a shirt from who knows where into Richie's arms. "It's cold as shit outside and everyone else should be on their way over. Well, Bill's downstairs making hot chocolate, actually. So you should get dressed and stuff because I think he brought movies we can watch or we can go outside but it's mostly ice out so it sucks for building with but we were talking about sledding or something later so dress warm."

Richie blinked at him.

He snuck a peek through the blinds. Sure enough, the front lawn was blanketed in white. He squinted against the cold, sharp light reflecting off the snow and shifted his attention back to Eddie and Ben. He was already twelve (not a kid anymore!), but the sight of snow still caused a warmth in his chest. He bit back a sleepy smile.

"Okay," he yawned. "So do you wanna stand in here while I change, or…?"

Eddie flushed bright red and pivoted. A moment later, the door slammed shut and Richie was left holding the clothes Eddie had shoved into his arms. Sleepily, he dumped them onto his bed and began tugging off his pajamas. His leg gave him pause.

Despite how quickly the bite had healed, the scars hadn't faded at all. Wednesday after school, his dad had taken him to the doctor to check for any abnormalities. They had been baffled by the speed it was healing but determined there was nothing wrong with it, so they gave him some scar cream or something (Richie was pretty sure he'd already lost it) and sent him home. 

He shrugged it off. Nothing he could do about it, even if looking at it sort of made him want to crawl into a ball and hide under his covers like he _was_ a little kid. He pulled his clothes on and shuffled out of his room.

Sometime while he was getting dressed, Stan must have shown up, because he was sipping on a mug of hot chocolate and chatting with Ben when Richie stepped into the kitchen. Eddie rifled through the pantry, paying him no mind.

"Stan the man! Glad you could make it!" Richie crowed, hopping up onto the counter next to the stove. "How's the cocoa coming, Bill?"

"I've got the water buh-boiling for Bev and Mike when they show up. Yours is on the table. Eddie's looking for—"

"Found them!" Eddie emerged from the pantry with a bag on marshmallows. Richie grinned.

"Good man!" He clapped Bill on the back as he hopped off the counter with a new hot chocolate-based mission. First objective: obtain marshmallows. He spun on his heels to face Eddie.

Eddie offered him the bag before Richie had the chance to say anything, and he felt like his heart was going to _explode._

"Why, thank you, Spaghetti!" he crooned in his poshest Voice. Eddie groaned.

"Why do you make me regret being nice to you?" he whined, and Stan snorted.

"That's where you go wrong. He's like an untrained dog and you're rewarding bad behavior," Stan said.

"You wound me, Staniel," Richie gasped, clutching his chest in mock agony even as he grinned and plopped down at the table next to Ben. He dumped a few marshmallows into his hot chocolate and passed it off. "So what's the plan, boys?"

"We were gonna wait for Mike and Bev to show up before we decide, but we were talking about sledding on that hill by the baseball field," Ben said. He passed on the marshmallows and took a sip of his hot chocolate. "This is really good, Bill."

Richie picked up his mug and breathed deeply. Everything smelled great, like warm milk and chocolate and snow and… a little like sheep? Which was super weird. He revved up to make a quip about it, something about lamb being his favorite marshmallow ingredient, when he heard snow crunching outside. He perked up his head.

"We won't have to wait too long for Mike's input!" Richie announced, but it didn't seem like anyone else knew what he was talking about. He shrunk under their quizzical gazes.

"What?" Stan asked, confusion written plainly on his face. Richie shrugged defensively.

"I mean, I can hear him walking up the driveway?" he said, although it came out more like a question. "Can none of you hear that?"

Everyone shook their heads. Richie dropped his gaze back to his mug. Just what he needed, another reason to sound like a freak.

"This— This isn't a bit, right?" Eddie asked.

"Why would I—" 

Richie was cut off by a knock at the door. He gestured grandly with as much sarcasm as he could as everyone glanced around in surprise. At the door, Richie could hear Mike letting himself in and taking off his coat.

"Hey, Mikey," he called over the sound of Mike stomping the snow off of his boots, and sneered when he heard Mike's answering _hello._

"How'd you know it was M-Mike, Rich? It could've been Beverly," Bill asked, and Richie shrugged.

"Dunno, I could just tell. Maybe I could just feel that a better man than any of us was gettin' close." He paused to fake pondering. "Although that would apply to Bev, too."

Eddie snorted and it felt like all of Richie's anxieties about being strange melted away. He grinned at him and found Eddie smiling back, and Richie swore his heart did a flip inside his chest. Mike strolled in with a smile of his own and was greeted with a chorus of hello's so bright that it was easy to forget the strange tension that had swamped the room just minutes before.

Beverly showed up half an hour after Mike, and they both agreed that sledding sounded like a good plan, which meant that they all bundled themselves up again and made the trek across town. Richie mourned the loss of their bikes until Stan pointed out that if they had biking weather they would be at school, at which point he switched to pestering Eddie about how many days they had left of school before winter break (nine, but who was counting?) and what he would be doing over break (probably traveling with his mom, but he wasn't sure yet, which sort of took the wind out of Richie's sails when he realized that meant he probably wouldn't see him all break). 

But sledding was fun, and the hill by the baseball field was the best place to go for it, even if (or maybe especially because) no one else seemed to think so. It wasn't the tallest or steepest hill, but there weren't many trees until the bottom and people tended to avoid it. Richie loved it. He loved it even more when they arrived and discovered that the Losers were the only ones there.

The commute, however, was an appealing level of dangerous. It wasn’t particularly uphill, but the slight incline mixed with the thick layer of icy snow meant that walking was akin to a mild form of ice skating. Their scarves were pulled over their mouths, they were tense with concentration, and the snow ate up most sound, which meant the walk was a crunchy quiet that was punctuated only with the occasional gasp that came along with slipping.

And then there was Richie who, unable to shut up for even the shortest amount of time, found himself narrating a weather report in a shitty trans-atlantic accent. 

“By George, it’s cold! You’ll want to watch where you step with weather like this—there’s no telling when you’ll slip!”

As if on cue, Eddie yelped and fumbled. His hand darted out to Richie, and he let his Voice devolve as Eddie gripped his upper arm like a vice. He grabbed onto Eddie right back, trying to avoid slipping down the side of the hill.

“You guys o-okay?” Bill asked from a few feet ahead. Eddie startled and hurriedly let go of Richie’s arm.

“All good, my fellow!” Richie said, glancing at Eddie to make sure it was true. Eddie nodded, so Richie nudged him lightly. “Careful, Eds. Don’t want Mrs. K to blow a gasket ‘cause you got all scraped up in the snow.”

Eddie grumbled something under his breath, which Richie assumed was probably _don’t call me Eds_ or something of the sort. He grinned at Eddie and carried on up the hill.

At the top, everyone had apparently decided they were going to go racing down it. Mike was confident that he could win with his dad’s old sled, while Bev was betting her own prowess despite her sled looking more like a trash can lid than anything else. After a few good chucks, they lined themselves up and pushed off into the snow.

The wind bit at Richie’s cheeks, and as he slid down the hill he could hear it whistle. His eyes stung. His cheeks hurt. His fingers were going numb from where they held the sled, the snow sinking wet into his gloves. He grinned hard regardless as he crashed down to the bottom.

“What did I tell you!” Mike said joyfully as everyone slid to a stop. His confidence in his old sled has been entirely justified, it seemed; he was already standing by the time Richie reached the bottom of the hill. Mike’s smile was brighter than the snow around him, and Richie was hit with a wave of love for his friends. _If only Mike went to school with us,_ he thought mournfully. _We’d see him way more often._

“Guess you were right, Mike,” Ben said. The cold air made his cheeks pink, and with the soft smile on his face, Richie thought he looked a little bit like an angel. Next to him, Beverly grinned.

“Don’t cheer him on too much, New Kid,” she said. “I’m still gonna take him down. Here, let’s buddy up for the next go-round.”

Richie’s clothes were all sort of soaked, and the trek to the top seemed a little foreboding from the bottom. That didn’t deter him, though, from carrying the sled back up the hill and going down again—colder this time, and wetter, and with his hair starting to stick freezing to his forehead where it poked out from under his hat. How could it, when Bill asked him to team up? Bill was always the fastest on Silver, so it made sense that he’d be the best racing partner, right?

(But he didn’t miss the pout that Eddie shot his way when he hopped on the back of Bill’s sled, nor the way it seemed to linger even as he joined Mike on his sled.)

As it turned out, Mike’s sled was fast but not sturdy. He and Eddie toppled to the ground halfway down the hill, leaving the victory to Ben and Bev, whooping as they passed them. Stan came in after them, alone with the odd number of people. Richie was incredibly disappointed to learn that Bill’s sled wasn’t nearly as fast as Silver, even as Bill pointed out that he’d finished last the last time, too. 

“Are we racing again?” Stan asked, and Richie thought he sounded kind of grumpy. “Or can we actually just have fun with it?”

“I guess that’s uh-up to everyone,” Bill said. Richie shrugged.

“We don’t have to race this time, Stan,” Mike said, smiling gently at him. “After last time, I should probably go a little slower, anyways.”

And so the racing devolved. As they began the trek up the hill, Richie elbowed Eddie in his ribs.

“Nice spill, Kaspbrak. Haven’t seen a wipeout like that in a while.”

Eddie was strangely silent. He stared determinedly ahead, glaring hard at the snow in front of him. Richie frowned and decided to try again.

“It was really impressive, actually. It looked like you were actually flying for a minute there. Like an actual angel!” Nothing. _Keep trying, dipshit._ “I think angels are probably more graceful, but you’re cute enough to be one. Like a little cherub. Cute, cute, cute!”

“I’m surprised you could see that from behind Bill,” Eddie grumbled, and Richie paused.

“Is that why you’re pissed at me? ‘Cause I rode with Bill?” When he didn’t get a reply, he slung an arm over Eddie’s shoulders. “Aw, Eds, are you jealous? You know you’re my number one! Right after your mom, of course.”

Eddie groaned.

“Will you shut _up_?” he snapped, shrugging off Richie’s arm and shoving him away. Now, this wasn’t a particularly unusual occurence, but they weren’t usually standing on an icy hill. Richie saw Eddie notice the problem at the same moment that he felt the ground disappear from under his feet and reappear beneath his back. The wide-eyed panic on Eddie’s face would probably have entertained Richie more had he not been sliding down the hill on his ass, but he could only really think about how he’d never really noticed how slippery his coat was until he was using it as a makeshift sled. He somehow managed to flip himself over and groaned as he ate snow. He had just decided to submit himself to the snow forever and ever when he felt a rough shake to his shoulder.

“Oh my god Rich are you okay? I’m so sorry I didn’t think about the fact that the ground is icy and I didn’t mean to push you so hard but I was just really annoyed but I didn’t want you to get hurt are you hurt? I hope you’re okay but this is like the second injury in a week and I hope you don’t have a concussion or anything or that you reopened your wound even though that doesn’t really make sense ‘cause it’s all scarred over but maybe it ripped the scars off somehow or gave you some new wound and I’m really sorry.”

Richie rolled over and blinked at Eddie, all wide-eyed and fretting. He was pretty sure his glasses were a little bent and his face was kinda scratched up, but he grinned anyways. 

“Don’t worry about it, Spaghetti. It takes more than a little slip to rough me up.” He pushed himself to his feet to prove his point and spread his arms wide. “See? All good here!”

Eddie still didn’t seem convinced, even though in retrospect Richie really hadn’t fallen very far. It made his stomach feel all fluttery, seeing Eddie so worried about him, which he was totally not ready to deal with. Instead, he nudged him again and gestured to the top of the hill.

“Wanna ride double this time?”

Eddie’s worry seemed to melt away and he smiled. In lieu of an answer, he trudged upward. Biting back a grin of his own, Richie followed, snow soaked and happy.

—

Winter break was _waaayyy_ less fun when half of Richie’s friends were out of town. Only Stan, Mike, and Bev were around to keep him company, and while Richie loved them (and he _did_ love them, he loved them so much that sometimes it overwhelmed him and he couldn’t breathe with it), it just wasn’t the same without everyone. Especially because Bev’s dad didn’t usually let her leave the house when he was off of work, which meant it was rare to see her at all, and Mike wasn’t always up for walking across town when his grandfather was too busy to drive him. 

Basically, Richie was _bored._ And kind of lonely, but he’d rather die than admit that out loud to anyone. So he and Stan decided (read: he called Stan and begged him until he agreed, but he didn’t think Stan needed all that much convincing, anyways) to walk over to the Aladdin and watch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Richie wasn’t even sure if it was a movie he was interested in, but he would probably be entertained by anything that wasn’t sitting in his room blaring his music loud enough that his parents _had_ to tell him to turn it off and trying to practice his Voices only to get distracted after five minutes of it.

So he shoveled some food into his mouth, got dressed, realized that his ankles were showing even though he was wearing his favorite pants and he’d already had the same thing happen two other times in the past week, threw on an extra pair of socks to cancel it out, ate some more, and headed toward the Aladdin. 

Stan was already in line when Richie showed up, nose and ears numb with the cold. _At least my ears are covered,_ he thought. His hair had been growing so fast lately that it curled loosely around his head and neck and offered that extra layer of protection. Still, he was _cold,_ so he headed inside and bumped shoulders with Stan. He glanced at Richie and then paused, eyebrows furrowing in thought.

“You’re taller,” he said. Richie snorted.

“Is that how we’re saying hello now? _Heya Richie, you’re taller!_ ” Richie said, doing an admittedly pretty bad impression of Stan’s voice and then dropping it with a shrug. “I dunno, dude. Growth spurts happen when you least expect them.”

Stan frowned but let it go, which Richie was incredibly grateful for. He made up his mind not to pester Stan _too_ much while they waited to buy their tickets.

(That lasted all of three minutes, after which Richie was right back to being Annoyance Number One on Stan’s list, begging him to buy an extra large popcorn and as many snacks as possible. He blamed it on being _a growing boy, Stanley, maybe you’ll figure out what that’s like someday_ and tried not to think about the hollow emptiness in his stomach that hadn’t really gone away no matter how hard he tried for weeks.)

—

By some terrible stroke of luck, Richie hadn't seen Eddie outside of school in _weeks._ Over three weeks, to be exact. He knew it was because of Eddie's mom and the way she got ever _more_ stifling in the winter and decided to drag Eddie off to his aunt's house in Sanford for both weeks of winter break, and even when he was home it wasn't like Richie could climb into Eddie's window when the trees were all icy and brittle (not for lack of trying—he busted his wrist the year before doing the same thing), so they'd been limited to at-school interactions, which was boring as all shit because Richie was still thinking about how Eddie said he might want to kiss and stuff and at school they can barely even hold hands because if anyone caught them they'd be strung up by morning. Whatever. He was managing.

"Managing" didn't mean he wasn't absolutely giddy about the idea of hanging out with him again, though.

The new year into 1989 had been boring, and then school had started again, which was somehow even more boring. But one perk of school was that Eddie was back in Derry, which meant that for the first time in exactly 27 days, Eddie was free after school. Richie couldn't wait.

Fridays were already hard for Richie to pay attention during, but that particular day he was _buzzing._ It felt like his blood had been replaced with Coke and Mentos, all fizzing and tingling underneath his skin. Some higher power must've given him a good shake, thrown his cap on, and left him to wait to explode. He tacked it up to being excited to see Eddie, which was _embarrassing._

He got it, body. No need to remind him about his big, dumb crush.

(Was it still a crush, though? Now that they were… holding hands under the lunch table. That was it. Yup, still totally a crush.)

But the eighth period bell was ringing, and he was loathe to make Eddie wait. He shoved his notebooks into his backpack haphazardly and rushed out into the hallway to his locker to grab his coat. He was still shoving it on when he found Eddie in the crowd of people by the door. Richie shrugged it on the rest of the way and beamed.

"Spaghetti! Ready to roll?" Richie crowed, and Eddie rolled his eyes at the hand he offered with flourish. He tugged at the end of Richie's sleeve in an attempt to get it to cover the bare inches of his wrists. Since his apparent growth spurt had begun, all of his clothes seemed to leave gaps of skin somewhere, displaying boney ankles and bonier wrists regardless of how much Richie tugged on them to try to make them fit. His father, upon noticing, patted him on the back and reassured him that he'd get new clothes once he _slowed down enough that he wouldn't outgrow them by next week, champ._

"Didn't you bring gloves?" Eddie asked, frowning when the fabric refused to budge. His own hands were covered in soft mittens that made Richie want to pinch his cheeks. _Cute, cute, cute!_ Instead, he just shrugged.

"I forgot 'em. Pretty sure I left them at home, or else I lost them." When that didn't life Eddie's frown, he threw on a Voice. "I am not afraid of a leettle cold. Eet ees alvays vinter in Mudder Russia."

Eddie snorted and shook his head, muttering something that sounded like _that was so bad._ Richie grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Let’s go! We’ve only got a few blissful hours before Mrs. K’s return, we’ve gotta use them carefully!” 

With that, they left the school, old snow crunching under their shoes. Richie kind of regretted wearing his converse after slipping on a patch of ice, but Eddie caught him by the shoulder before he could fall too far, which pretty much made it even. Still, he actually did regret not bringing his gloves when he brought his hands out of his pockets to steady himself. His fingers ached in the cold, and he didn’t miss the concerned looks Eddie kept shooting him as they walked to Richie’s house. When Richie brought his hands up to his face to attempt to blow some warmth back into them, Eddie stopped with a huffed sigh. He shucked off one of his mittens before Richie could ask what he was doing and offered it with a glare.

“Uh,” Richie said intelligently. “What?”

“You’re gonna get frostbite or something, dumbass, and I don’t want you to wipe out because your hands are in your pockets, so at least this way you can keep one hand out for a little bit of balance,” Eddie grumbled, but his cheeks were flushed in a way that Richie didn’t think was entirely caused by the cold. 

“But what about you?” And yup, he was totally right. Eddie blushed a little darker and looked away.

“I’m fine. I’ve still got the other one,” he mumbled, and Richie hoped his own blush wasn’t too obvious on his face. He grabbed the mitten and then paused when his fingers brushed against Eddie’s, too cold to really feel it but too aware of it not to. An idea struck him and he threaded their fingers together instead.

“What—” Eddie began, but Richie ignored him in favor of tugging the mitten over both of their hands with his free hand. 

“There,” Richie proclaimed, squeezing Eddie’s hand lightly. “Now both of us can be warm.” 

It was a little awkward; the opening had gaps between their arms that let cold air in and it was obviously made for one hand, not two, but Eddie squeezed his hand back even as he looked pointedly away and pouted.

“This is a total safety hazard. You know that if you go down, I’ll go down with you? It’s just asking for broken bones. That’s not to mention that you’re totally stretching it out. This is literally never going to fit properly again.” Eddie’s thumb rubbed soothingly over his hand, a total contrast to the warning tone in his voice. Richie felt a little bit like exploding from how much he loved him. He wanted to tell him as much, just to get it out there.

“Sure thing, Eds,” he said instead. “If you’re so bothered, you can have it back all to yourself. I’m a big boy, I promise I can handle it.”

Eddie huffed and gave his hand another squeeze.

“Just remember to bring your gloves next time, asshole,” he said, and Richie wanted to kiss the red of his cheeks more than anything else he’d ever felt ever, probably.

Inside the warmth of the mitten and wrapped in the warmth of Eddie’s fingers, Richie’s hand slowly stopped aching with the cold. It made the jittery feeling from earlier return in full force, and it kind of made Richie want to crawl out of his skin, circle around it a few times, and then settle back into it like an animal lying on a pillow. But if being with Eddie just made him feel it stronger, so be it. He wasn’t going to give up their chance at an afternoon together just because he felt impossibly more like buzzing out of his skin than usual.

After what could’ve been hours but was probably more like twenty minutes, they arrived at Eddie’s house. Richie’s hand was sweating inside the mitten but he was pretty sure Eddie’s was, too, so he wasn’t super embarrassed about it. Still, the stairs leading up to the front door were iced over, so he pulled it out to grip the rail even if it felt like it was burning from the sudden cold (bummer) and lack of Eddie (bigger bummer). Eddie followed carefully and pushed the door open.

The Kaspbrak house was never one that was particularly filled with life. Richie always privately hated it, and did his worst to push jokes in hopes that something would make Eddie laugh and break him out of the slump he always seemed to be in when he was home. It was better without his mom there, though. The silence was kind of eerie when he was used to Sonia’s weird television shows playing at all times, but it was a nice reminder that she wasn’t there. Eddie seemed to feel the same way, if the slump of his shoulders was anything to go by. Richie nudged him.

“I’ve got the newest issue of Wolverine in my backpack if you wanna grab some snacks and read it together?” Richie said, although it came out more like a question than he meant as he shrugged off his coat. Eddie nodded and smiled. Richie felt his whole body warm when some of the tension finally drained from him, so he turned away and headed to Eddie’s room before he could notice the heat in Richie’s cheeks.

Hanging out with Eddie was nice. Of course it was, it was _Eddie._ Eddie as a whole was nice. Even when he was bitching about germs or wrestling with him, it was a simple truth that Eddie was just. Nice. If boys were made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, they must’ve found the nicest goddamn ones around. Eddie could be escargot, that’s how good his snails were.

Okay, so maybe Richie’s metaphors needed a little work. No one said he was a poet.

The point was, it had been so long since they’d hung out that Richie had almost forgotten how much he loved it. That seemed impossible, considering he spent at least half of his day every day thinking about him (and recently, mourning the weeks he’d spent without him), but Eddie always exceeded expectations. Really knocked Richie’s socks off. Blew his mind. Made him want to applaud, say _10 out of 10, good sir! Spectacular! Keep doing exactly that!_

That point of _that_ was that Eddie had arrived in his room just after Richie had settled into his bed with the comic, laying across it in the way that always made Eddie tell him to _make room, dipshit, it’s my bed!_ , and decided that the best course of action would be to push up the covers and climb in next to Richie without protest. 

Now, Eddie had a twin sized bed. There was basically no way to avoid contact with Richie if he wanted to, and as far as Richie could tell, he _didn’t_ want to. Instead, he leaned his head on Richie’s shoulder, curled up close next to him, and sort-of-but-not-really wrapped his arm around Richie’s waist, which. Okay. There was no way Richie would be able to focus on the comic with Eddie cuddling with him, but he still decided to make his best attempt at pretending he was, at the very least. 

...Nope. Not gonna work. He gave up and shut the comic, ignoring the annoyed huff of Eddie’s breath to turn slightly to face him. Eddie sat up slightly and blinked at him, and suddenly Richie was extremely aware of how close they were and the fact that their faces were just a few inches apart, and _holy shit were they going to kiss?_ Richie opened his mouth to speak, to say absolutely anything at all, but for once he couldn’t think of any words to say. Eddie’s expression was unreadable, but his cheeks were just as pink as Richie was sure his were, so he felt pretty good about it.

“Hey,” Richie whispered. Eddie just stared. “Do y—”

Eddie’s wristwatch beeped loudly. They startled apart as Eddie fumbled with it, trying to turn the alarm off. Richie turned his head resolutely away, wishing his face would get the memo and stop burning quite so hard.

Shit. How badly did he have to fuck up if he got beeped by an inanimate object?

They settled back against the bed, if "settled" actually meant "sat tensely a foot apart where before it was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended." Richie's skin buzzed where Eddie had been and buzzed more where he hadn't. He felt electric. He felt like melting into a puddle and never moving again. More than anything, he felt like turning to Eddie and begging to know if he was thinking the same things.

The comic was no easier to read by himself, but Richie didn't know what to say (what could he say?) and Eddie was tight-lipped and stiff in the shoulders. The strange quiet tension made Richie feel like he was back in the woods, leaning hard on Eddie's shoulder and a little bit delirious. It made him anxious, trembling hard enough that the vibrating under his skin seemed to take over his whole body. 

He couldn’t concentrate on anything. His heart thumped hard in his chest, saying _go, go, run away into those woods. It can’t get you again. It’s safer than this. What is this?_

Richie startled as Eddie grasped his shoulder. He turned again to face Eddie and was hit with a tidal wave of concern, written all across his face and in his eyes. Belatedly, Richie realized he had been shaking.

“Rich? Is— Are you okay?”

“Totally! Never better!” But Eddie looked so open and genuine, and a little bit hurt that Richie was brushing him off, and Richie wanted nothing less than to hurt Eddie, so he sighed and said, “Just, uh. Thinking about that night. It’s been, like, a month, but I’m still kinda scared of, y’know. Wolves and stuff. And it gets quiet and I just think about…” He huffed quietly and looked away. “Never mind. It’s dumb.”

“No!” Eddie said with enough force that Richie looked back on instinct. He looked so determined that Richie was inclined to believe immediately that he had been wrong. “It’s not dumb at all. I mean, I’m still… It was really really scary, actually. I still have nightmares about it and everything.”

“You do?” Eddie nodded. “About… being attacked?”

“Yeah, I mean… Who can forget nearly being mauled by a fucking wolf? Especially after everything that happened with Georgie and Betty Ripsom and everything, not to mention how many diseases that thing probably carried, and the fact that it’s probably a miracle that you _didn’t_ get a bunch of infections or whatever from it, but what if you had and what if you died or got super hurt or I couldn’t help you out of there or we both died? What then? How am I _not_ supposed to have nightmares about that?”

“Wait, you have nightmares about _me_ getting hurt?”

Eddie scoffed, which Richie felt was totally uncalled for. It wasn’t like Eddie knew that being too slow to stop the wolf from getting him was at the forefront of a bunch of Richie’s nightmares. He didn’t want it to be _weird_ , okay? Even though Eddie obviously disagreed, it felt silly.

“Uh, yeah, obviously? What, like I wouldn’t have nightmares about my— about you getting attacked and me having to drag you half-conscious through the woods? That was fucking terrifying!”

“Oh,” Richie said. He wasn’t sure what else he could say. Eddie’s slip-up echoed in his mind. _Your what?_ Richie wondered, but Eddie had turned away faux-casually as if it changed how red his cheeks were or the thumping in Richie’s chest. He decided he absolutely needed a distraction. “Do you, um. Wanna keep reading?”

Luckily, Eddie did. Richie didn’t hold back from making as many dumb comments as he could think to make, and Eddie didn’t hold back from ragging on him for all of them. Richie was privately grateful for the return to normalcy, and he sort of thought Eddie was, too.

Sooner than either of them wanted, Eddie’s clock beeped seven o’clock and Richie had to leave. Sonia Kaspbrak got home at 7:10 on the dot, and Eddie had explained that he'd _really rather not deal with her freaking out because you're here, Rich_ , so he helped Richie pack up his comics and walked him to the door.

"Here," Eddie said, handing him the mittens he’d worn earlier as he pushed the door open. Richie just blinked at him.

“Are you sure? You won’t—I mean, you don’t need them?”

“I’ve got other gloves.” Eddie’s voice was casual, but his cheeks were pink and he couldn’t seem to make eye contact with Richie. Richie didn’t blame him—he was pretty sure that his own face would work as a personal heater with how warm it felt. The cold air from the open door barely even registered. He took the mittens gratefully and paused as his fingers brushed Eddie’s. That finally made Eddie look up at him, and Richie was pretty sure he could name all of the emotions that crossed his face (shocked, contemplative, afraid, decisive, and one that was far too tender for Richie to name without combusting) before Eddie reached a hand to Richie’s cheek and kissed him. 

It only lasted a few seconds, but when Eddie pulled away Richie felt dazed and also like he could spontaneously combust at any second. He stared at Eddie, who stared right back, still stuck on that tender expression. Richie had no idea what to make of that.

“Um,” he said intelligently, which seemed to snap Eddie right out of his daze. His expression morphed entirely into one of pure panic, which Richie would definitely have been able fix if he hadn’t just forgotten the entire English language.

“Goodnight!” Eddie blurted, and then he slammed the door in Richie’s face, still holding the mittens and frozen in shock. 

“Goodnight,” Richie echoed to the door, and then slowly turned to make the walk home.

The jittery feeling didn't go away for the walk home, nor during dinner. In fact, it seemed to be _worse_ as Richie prepared himself for bed. He supposed that made sense, though. How could he expect to be calm after Eddie had kissed him?

His mind replayed the moment on loop. _Eddie_ kissed _him!_ Richie! Eddie kissed Richie and then… slammed the door. Well. He couldn't ask for everything.

Richie was so distracted by the _kissing_ and the _buzzing_ that he brushed his teeth twice and only realized after he'd finished the second time. He stared at himself in the mirror for a minute. His reflection stared right back, taller then it had been a month ago. Before he could think too hard about it, Richie turned away and headed to bed.

Falling asleep was a giddy process. The tingling only grew stronger under his skin, and the constant stream of _Eddieeddiekissingeddiewowza!!_ meant that he was nowhere near close to sleep, but he felt like he should. He needed to. Carefully, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, willing sleep to take him over.

When he woke up the next day, Richie knew automatically that something was wrong. It wasn’t the bone-deep feeling he’d been feeling, though—his whole body _ached_ with it, and sunlight throbbed in his eyes despite them being closed. That was what actually inspired him to open his eyes, because he was sure he had shut his curtains before bed, and what he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

He _had_ closed his curtains, but at some point in the night they had been shredded completely. The tattered remains were scattered around his room, which was all in a similar state of disarray. Most of the clothes on his floor (too small, all too small—) were destroyed, the drawers of his dressers had been yanked open and decorated with deep scratches in the wood, and there were strange clumps of hair spread randomly across the room. Richie felt like his heart was attempting to beat in time with the end of Come On Eileen, all _too-ra-loo-ra, too-ra-loo-rye-ay_ faster and faster until he wondered if Eddie’s asthma was somehow contagious, because he couldn’t _breathe_ , what the _fuck._

“What the fuck?” he whispered to himself, and in the silent wreckage of his room it sounded like a shout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments/kudos fuel me :') hopefully chapter 3 won't take nearly as long to write but in the meantime im on tumblr @ jortsbian.tumblr.com!


	3. but i just keep on laughing, hiding the tears in my eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie deals with his bedroom wreckage in the best way he knows how and discovers some new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from boys don't cry by the cure
> 
> sorry this took almost a month to write lmao. hopefully the fact that this chapter is longer than any other fic ive written makes up for it
> 
> check end notes for content warnings

Even before he checked the window and door (still locked and mostly undisturbed), Richie knew deep down that no one else— _ nothing _ else—had been in his room. He wasn't sure how he knew, exactly, but he knew it like he knew he was right handed, like it was some strange instinct. Which meant, regardless of how hard he tried to ignore the train of thought, that he must've been the one to tear everything apart.

He wasn't sure what that meant. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Richie's room wasn't ever clean, not by a long shot, but he knew he couldn't leave it the way it was. Better for his parents to be pleasantly surprised that it was tidy than to wonder why it looked like he'd taken scissors to everything with a vengeance rivaled only by supervillains and angry dogs. Ignoring the shaking in his hands, he made work taking his curtains down and creating a pile of ruined clothes and tried not to notice the splinters and threads under his nails.

By the time he finished gutting his room of as much evidence of… whatever happened as possible, he had even fewer clothes that fit and had succeeded mostly in working himself into a panic. There wasn’t anything he could do about the deep cuts into the wood of his dressers, and part of his mattress was ripped, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how somehow he had done all of that and he couldn’t figure out what that  _ meant _ . 

He knew one thing, though. Whatever the reason, he was dangerous. And that meant he had to keep his friends safe. He couldn’t tell them about it, not when he didn’t even know what was going on, so he would just… stay away. As much as it hurt to even think about, he had to do what he could to keep them from getting hurt. He just had to.

Because some higher power had it out for him, his dad took that moment to call up to him.

“Son? Eddie’s on the phone,” Wentworth said, and Richie was pretty sure he almost jumped right out of his skin.

“Tell him I’m shitting!” Richie replied in a panic, and resolutely ignored the chuckle he heard in response. Maybe isolating himself wouldn’t be as easy as he expected.

It wasn't long before he realized he needed a trash bag. He attempted to sneak down the stairs, but Richie had never been particularly quiet. Even when he wasn’t trying to get as many eyes on him as possible, he was uncoordinated and perpetually unused to his gangly limbs. As much as he didn’t want to be noticed, he still found himself stumbling into the living room where his parents were watching Cheers reruns and chatting. They glanced at him.

“Morning, Rich. Decided to call Eddie back after all?” his dad asked, and Richie shook his head  _ no _ . Next to him, his mom frowned in concern.

“Are you feeling alright? You look tired.”

“I’m fine, Mom. I just came down to get a bag ‘cause I’m cleaning my room,” Richie mumbled, and Wentworth laughed.

“My, Maggie, I think you’re right! The boy must be sick! I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say he cleaned his room without bribery involved.”

“Is that what all that noise was last night?” Maggie asked. “I wish you wouldn’t lock your door like that. I tried to check on you but I couldn’t get in and you didn’t answer when I knocked.”

“Uh, yeah,” Richie lied. He wished he knew what she’d heard, but how could he ask?  _ Hey, Ma, I know I just said I was cleaning but what exactly did that sound like? Was it me? _ Instead, he said, “I guess I didn’t hear you.”

“You know you’re allowed to clean during the day, too, right? I promise we won’t make fun of you for trying to be tidy,” she said, shooting him a friendly smile. Offering him an out, even as he denied that he needed one in the first place. He returned it as well as he could, grateful for her understanding.

“I dunno about that. I can’t guarantee I won’t rib on him for it next time his friends come over,” Wentworth said despite the look Maggie sent him. “Is this because Eddie called? I knew that boy couldn’t be a good influence.”

Richie’s face must have done something strange at the mention of Eddie, because his mom slapped lightly at his dad’s arm and hissed a quiet  _ Wentworth! _ that actually had him looking regretful. Richie wasn’t sure what he looked like, exactly, but the reminder that he had come so close to having something nice with Eddie and then he had to distance himself made his heart ache the same way his bones already did. His parents glanced at each other meaningfully and his father cleared his throat.

“Richie… Son, did something happen with Eddie?”

Richie felt his blood run cold with an entirely different kind of panic.  _ They know, how do they know? _

“I— No, I— Nothing happened, I didn’t— I’m not—” Richie said, fumbling over his words so badly that he felt like he finally understood how Bill felt. His face burned, and to his mortification, his eyes stung. His mom stood up from the couch and approached him carefully. Richie was strangely reminded of people dealing with scared animals.  _ Don’t run, I just want to help. _

“We just wondered if you’d been fighting. It’s not often that you don’t want to talk to him,” she said gently, and Richie felt his face crumple. His mom sighed sympathetically and pulled him into her arms. 

Despite being taller than her after his growth spurt, Maggie Tozier’s hugs always felt like the safest place to be. He was embarrassed to be crying, but when he felt her nod her head and Wentworth’s arms join hers around him, he almost laughed with relief.

It didn’t take long for him to run out of tears. He was tired and felt kind of silly about it, but his parents just squeezed him tighter when he sniffled definitively, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“Rich, if you… That is to say, if something…  _ else _ ... did happen with him, or with anyone…” Wentworth said, and Maggie cleared her throat meaningfully as Richie went stiff with panic. Wentworth sighed in defeat. “We love you, that’s all. Regardless of anything you might think would make us stop. We’re a forever deal, alright?”

Richie had no idea how to respond to that, so instead he sniffled again and pulled himself out of their grasps. He gave them both a big, toothy grin, and threw on a Voice.

“My, y’all sure know how to treat a gal right! I feel just blessed to call this place home,” he said, fanning his face dramatically. His parents sighed good-naturedly and his mom shooed him away.

“Alright, go get your trash bag then. We mean it, though,” she said. Richie’s Voice fell away.

“Yeah, I know. I, uh. I love you, too,” he admitted quietly. His dad clapped him on the back.

“Good to hear it! I was sure getting worried there. Thought you might run away and live in the woods any day now,” he joked, and Richie laughed.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I still plan on sticking around for a while longer.”

"Even if you run off to live in a wolf den, you'll always have a home here, alright?" Maggie teased, and then waved him off. "Now shoo! Go clean before the urge leaves you!"

Richie obliged, giggling to himself and feeling much better than he had a few minutes earlier. It was almost easy to forget the mess and pretend like everything was alright.

—

Eddie called twice more that weekend, but each time Richie remembered the deep grooves still in his dresser and the matching wood he’d had to pluck out from under his nails and told his parents to drop the call. Once, Bill called, and Richie was so surprised that he accepted the call warily.

“Richie?” Bill’s voice crackled over the line, and Richie tried not to panic.

“Well hello, Big Bill! Didn’t fancy I’d hear your voice on this fine Sunday eve. What’s got you in the mood?”

“Why are you ign-noring Eddie?” Bill asked, straight to the point as always. Richie gulped.

“Ignoring Eds? Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I told him you wuh-wouldn’t do that, but he s-said you haven’t picked up the phone all weekend. So w-w-why?”

“I…” Richie said, but he didn’t know where to go from that. How could he explain? “I dunno. I’ll see him tomorrow, though, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. We were tuh-talking about hanging out after school tomorrow. You down?”

Richie paused. He wanted to say  _ duh, of course I am, _ but he didn’t want to crumble so easily from his own moral code. He sighed.

“Can’t, Bill. I’ve got stuff to do.”

“What?” Bill sounded genuinely confused, which Richie thought was rude, if fair. “W-what stuff?”

“Somethin’ from my parents. I dunno, it’s probably boring. Cleaning the house or something.”

“W-we could help you? That would make it go faster.”

“No!” Richie exclaimed, and he could practically see the confused frown on Bill’s face. “Or, I mean, that’s okay. I can miss one hang. It won’t kill me.”

“Sure,” Bill agreed, but he still sounded confused. “Well, I g-guess I’ll see you at school.”

“See ya, Bill,” Richie said, and hung up the phone before Bill could say goodbye.

So. Eddie told Bill that Richie was ignoring his calls, which meant that he knew that Richie’s excuses were full of shit. Bill had apparently told him that Richie wouldn’t ignore him, which Richie would usually have agreed with had he not been in the middle of doing exactly that. He sort of wondered what else Bill knew. Did he know about the kiss? Did anyone?

Whatever. It wasn’t like it mattered, not if he was going to be cutting himself off. But the thought alone of that—of isolating himself, of losing all of his friends—scared him to his core. It wasn’t like he had any other options, though, so he did his best to shrug it off and pretend it didn’t bother him. 

—

Mondays were inarguably the worst days of the week, in Richie’s opinion. Not only did they mark the end of the weekend, but the lunch line served spaghetti and meatballs, only the spaghetti was chewy like rubber and no one really knew what kind of meat was in the meatballs. Most Mondays, Richie used the meal as an excuse to antagonize Eddie with an abundance of “Eddie Spaghetti” jokes, but since he’d decided he wasn’t going to be talking to his friends, his food just served as a sore reminder of them.

He missed them. That was the sad truth of it, as he took his tray into the restroom and locked the door to the first stall before any of his friends could spot him. 

Despite his Loser status, he’d never had to eat in the restroom before, not with his group of friends and especially not since it had grown to include Ben and Beverly (and Mike, but it wasn’t like he could eat lunch at school with them). Immediately, he decided he hated it. The stall was covered in vulgar graffiti, and although Richie had certainly added his own before, he wasn’t too keen on staring at badly drawn dicks as he ate his one-star meal, not to mention the smell. Every breath he took was a reminder of his location and nearly made him retch. 

It was almost bad enough to make him give up and take refuge in the cafeteria, but every time he got close to leaving, he pictured the carnage of his room and sat decisively back down. He wasn’t going to put his friends in danger, not even by sitting alone at the lowercase-L loser table. He had to do that much, at least.

—

Richie held out on sitting with everyone until Thursday. It was lonely and uncomfortable, and he hated dodging everyone’s looks and attempts to talk to him, but he was determined. People could call him many unflattering things, but no one could call him a quitter.

(Maybe they could call him a coward, though. Maybe that’s all there was to it.)

But Thursdays he smoked with Bev, and while he didn’t want to give in so easily, sitting through English without that bit of routine made him fidgety and anxious. Finally, with fifteen minutes of class left, he broke and raised his hand, asking to go to the restroom. His teacher seemed more than willing to get rid of the  _ tap-tap-tapping _ of his foot and pencil that had been the white noise of the entire lesson and let him go easily, not even batting an eye as Richie took his backpack with him.

He wouldn’t talk to her, he told himself. He’d just bum one off of whoever else might be out there. But of course there was no one else there, because they’d specifically chosen a spot where no one came unless they were desperate enough to hide behind the dumpsters, too. Richie nearly turned tail and ran when he saw Beverly sitting there, but she was quick to spot him and even quicker to her feet.

“Trashmouth! And here I thought you’d abandoned me!” she said, and while her voice was teasing, he could see the worry written on her face. He did his best to school his own expression into a carefree grin.

“And miss out on smokes with my favorite lady? What kind of gentleman would that make me?” he said in a Voice not even he could place. Bev snorted and offered him a cigarette.

“The day you become a gentleman, you let me know. I’ll owe people some money.”

Richie laughed and took the cigarette. He basked in the quiet for as long as he could before Bev inevitably spoke. He knew she would—there was no way to get around it, not with her. He doubted any of them would let him off the hook easily.

“Hey, what’s with the cold shoulder lately? You decide you’re too cool for the Losers all of a sudden?” she asked. Richie blew out a breath of smoke and sighed. 

“Yeah, ‘cause eating in the bathroom is so much cooler,” he said. Beverly winced. They both knew that she’d spent a lot of time taking refuge in restrooms before joining their group. 

“Why in there? Did someone say something?”

“Nah, it’s nothing. I just… Dunno, it’s complicated. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Bev nudged him gently. She put out her cig ( _ almost done, she’d been out there for a long time before he showed up _ ) and turned to face him.

“Try me, because if it’s not a good enough explanation I’ll drag you by the ear to lunch tomorrow, and we both know that I’m stronger than you.”

“I just…” Richie started, and then trailed off. How could he explain it when he didn’t even know what was wrong? “You ever afraid of things? And you know more than anything that you wanna keep your friends safe, no matter what?”

“Uh-huh.” She paused and then placed her hand on his knee. Even through her glove and his pants, it felt like it burned. “What are you afraid of, Richie?”

_ Clowns, _ he could say. He’d practiced that answer before, after a truth or dare question asked his biggest fear and he didn’t quite know how to say  _ being known and hated for it. _ But the word got stuck on his tongue, and instead what he ended up saying was:

“Myself.”

Something in Beverly’s face seemed to melt into understanding, and she smiled sadly at him. Richie’s heart leapt with love for her.

“I get that,” she said, so softly that Richie thought he should’ve missed it. She squeezed his knee gently. “But that’s not a good enough reason to cut us all off all of a sudden. It’s like you forget we like you, or something.”

He sort of  _ did _ tend to forget that, what with all the beeping and the  _ shut up, Richie _ s that were an everyday occurrence, but he wasn’t about to admit that. Instead, he shrugged and tried his best to smile.

“You know, Eddie was really freaked out about it. It seemed like he felt really bad about something, but he wouldn’t tell us what it was, only that he was sorry if he made you hate all of us,” Bev said, casual tone overlaid with a heavy sort of bite to it. Richie felt like someone had dropped ice down his shirt.

“He didn’t— I don’t hate any of you! Eddie didn’t do anything wrong!” he blurted. Beverly squinted at him in what looked like a sort of amused confusion.

“You might want to tell him that. I don’t think he’s stopped to breathe once all week.”

Richie frowned but nodded. Distantly, he heard the bell ring to announce the end of the period.

“Hey, you’ve got math next, right? With Eddie?” Bev asked, standing up and dusting old snow off her legs. “Tell him that whatever he thinks he did was fine. I don’t think I can handle another day of him working himself into asthma attacks just because he thinks he upset you.

She was, as usual, correct. Richie told her as much just to hear her giggle and then stood himself up, dropping the cigarette in the snow and crushing it under his heel. Shaking his legs out to psych himself up, he offered an elbow with an exaggerated bow and led Beverly into the school for class.

—

Talking to Eddie shouldn’t be hard. Sometimes, it seemed like all he  _ did _ was talk to Eddie. If the opportunity was there, Richie would be talking to him, riling him up just to watch him explode or joking with him to hear his laugh and the enthusiastic way he would join in. But it wasn’t like they talked about  _ feelings. _ The last time Richie had tried to talk to Eddie about feelings, he was literally bitten by a wolf. It seemed like as good a warning as any:  _ danger! Don’t go deeper than the jokes or face the consequences! Certain death! _

Except, well, Richie hadn’t died, so maybe death wasn’t certain at all. Maybe the only certainty was uncertainty itself. Or maybe the only certainty was that Richie was being a little bitch about it, and needed to grow up and deal with it like a big kid before he became too much of a coward to even come up with a witty punchline to an insult flung at him.

Bravery, however, was not Richie’s strong suit. Privately, he’d always thought Eddie was the bravest person he knew, but the way Eddie’s shoulders were hitched nearly to his ears told Richie that he needed to be the one to take the plunge. As he passed Eddie to get to his seat, he dropped him a simple note— _ meet me outside school 2day to chat? normal place. sorry i've been such a dick lately _ , followed by a crude drawing of a dick with glasses and a plate of spaghetti _. _ Eddie jumped in his seat as he saw it and then spun abruptly around, staring wide-eyed at Richie like he didn’t believe it was actually him. Richie grinned and shot him a thumbs up, which seemed to relax Eddie even if Richie’s own heartbeat was going a hundred miles an hour. Eddie smiled softly at him and turned back in his seat to face the front of the classroom where their teacher was beginning the lesson. 

Richie sighed. Now to get through the lesson.

—

Their “normal place” was a semi-secluded spot next to the field behind the school. There was a big tree that had been fun to climb before it died and was labeled a hazard in the eyes of the teachers and became off-limits, but it still served as a good spot to hang out, in Richie’s opinion. Without the tree-climbing traffic, it was rare to find anyone there, but it was still public enough that running away was a total possibility. After all, that was what Richie was going for. He couldn’t let Eddie blame himself, but Richie couldn’t risk talking to him somewhere like his house, where if something happened there would be no one around to help.

Richie still wasn’t sure what exactly was the danger, but he knew it must be him. Somehow, he had become something… scary. Dangerous. Threatening.

Eddie could be called many things, but dangerous wasn’t one of them, nor was cowardly. Richie knew without a doubt that Eddie would show up, and yet he still found himself surprised when he arrived at the tree and saw Eddie already there, waiting anxiously. He nearly talked himself out of approaching further before Eddie spotted him and rushed over.

“Oh my God, Richie, I’m so sorry! I really thought— I mean we were holding hands but then you stopped talking to us after I— and then I thought about it and I realized you never actually said yes when I asked you out and I didn’t even realize and then I kissed you and you didn’t want me to and I’m sorry I just thought we… and I don’t want you to have to stay away from me but I understand if you want to but I swear I won’t do it again and—” Eddie rambled, and Richie’s heart dropped as he heard the panic in his voice. The actual words he was saying took a moment to catch up with him, but once they did, he frowned in confusion.

“Wait, what?” Richie interrupted, and Eddie paused. 

“What do you mean,  _ what? _ ” he asked, squinting at Richie suspiciously. Richie shook his head.

“Is that why you think I’ve been avoiding everyone?”

“I mean… yes?”

Eddie frowned at Richie in a mirror of the confusion he felt. That was  _ so far _ from the truth that Richie felt like he could’ve laughed if Eddie didn’t look so… upset. Instead, he waved his hands frantically and denied it.

“No!” Richie exclaimed. Eddie’s frown shifted into something less defensive and more surprised, but he still looked tense. Closed off, the way he did when his mom called him over in front of his friends or when Bowers glared at him in the hallways. Richie was sure his face was pink from more than the cold as he continued. “No, that’s not… I mean, I wanted that. You kissing me. To kiss you, I mean. I wanted to.”

Eddie’s eyes widened in surprise. Richie watched with a distant sort of delight as his cheeks reddened and his eyebrows furrowed together. They were quiet for a moment before Eddie spoke again.

“But you didn't say anything…?”

Richie was about to ask what Eddie meant when it occurred to him that no, he hadn’t actually answered Eddie’s proposition in the first place. The old thought in the back of his mind of  _ you’re forgetting something! _ suddenly seemed so obvious. How could he forget to answer Eddie?

“I mean, I was gonna say yes. I just sorta got interrupted, what with the wolf and all,” Richie explained. He hoped he played it off casually enough, but he knew Eddie saw the way he adjusted his glasses nervously. There was no way he could fool Eddie.

“You were?” Eddie asked, a happy little giggle punctuating it and making Richie’s heart melt. He grinned at him.

“Yeah, dude, are you kidding? I thought you asking me was the coolest thing ever!”

The two of them took a moment to bask in the quiet giddiness. Hearing it confirmed made Richie feel like he’d accidentally swallowed a bunch of butterflies and they were flapping desperately inside his stomach, but then Eddie’s grin fell and the butterflies turned into wasps warning him to  _ abort mission get out go! _

“So, wait, why were you avoiding me? Did I do something? If it’s not that then what did I do because you have to tell me what I do, Rich, I don’t just  _ know _ this stuff!”

“ _ You _ didn’t do anything,” Richie said, cringing at the way he emphasized  _ you _ like it explained everything.  _ Nice touch of subtlety, Rich. Good going.  _

“Then who…?” Eddie asked, concern plain on his face again. “Was it Bowers?”

“Nah, none of them,” Richie said, and then sighed in defeat as Eddie kept staring at him. “I dunno, I did something… scary. And now I’m scared that you’re gonna get hurt if I hang around you. You or—or anyone else.”

“That,” Eddie scoffed, “is literally the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Are you joking? You’re like— No way. What could you have possibly done that makes you think that you’re  _ dangerous? _ ”

“I…” How could he explain that? “I dunno. I can’t really explain it.”

“That’s stupid. Come on, Richie, we all know you couldn’t hurt a fly. Don’t be ridiculous.”

He  _ didn’t _ know that was true, but he nodded anyways. Eddie smiled.

“So, are you gonna come back to lunch tomorrow? We… We really missed you, Rich.”

And then he broke out the puppy dog eyes. Richie wasn’t in the habit of saying no to Eddie, and it was damn near impossible when he looked that... soft. Almost against his control, he nodded, but he decided it was worth it when Eddie beamed at him. Torn up room be damned, he would do anything if it meant Eddie kept smiling at him like that.

—

As it turned out, being officially labeled as Eddie’s boyfriend had its perks (not that anyone but the two of them knew, but it didn’t matter). Namely, Richie didn’t have to feel so bad about wanting to just  _ touch _ Eddie. That didn’t make it easier, per se, but it did help the voice in his mind that said he was  _ dirtybadwrong, _ because how could he be dirty if Eddie wanted the same thing? 

Holding hands became commonplace and made Richie’s heart pound every time. Hugs lasted longer, because Richie allowed himself to  _ hold _ and to be held for as long as Eddie wanted to. One time, Richie kissed Eddie on the cheek—Eddie turned so red that Richie reached for his inhaler before Eddie swatted his hands away from his fanny pack and insisted he was fine. It was  _ nice _ . It was  _ good _ . It made Richie’s heart thrum with joy and anxiety.

That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t still afraid. Not even good, honest communication could stop the fear that ran his blood cold when Richie thought about what anyone would say, or about the wreckage of his room. But it was easier to ignore when Eddie’s fingers were laced with his. 

The Losers had accepted Richie back easily and without much questioning. They all looked at him like they  _ wanted _ to ask, but every time someone would say so much as a “so, Richie,” Eddie and Bev would shoot them such withering glares that they’d always back off and say something dumb. Richie appreciated it, sure, but he almost wanted someone to get mad. To lash out so he could lash right back, and maybe then he would understand what was going on. 

(But maybe he didn’t want to understand. Maybe, just maybe, he preferred pretending like he didn’t know.)

Once school got more into the swing of things again, Eddie was finally allowed to hang out more than once a week again, which meant Richie took every available opportunity to spend as much time with him as possible. He loved all of the Losers with his whole heart, sure, but when it was just the two of them, they could do things like hold hands and cuddling, which made Richie’s heart race like it was running a marathon and made him turn all shades of red. They hadn’t kissed again since that Friday at Eddie’s house—it felt far too adult for Richie to initiate when he felt small and less grown-up than he had in years—but cuddling was new and quickly becoming commonplace. Richie would sit back on the couch and Eddie would tuck himself under Richie’s arm and curl up against his side, or Eddie would be sitting and Richie would lay his head in Eddie’s lap and stare at him while Eddie played with his hair in a way that would seem absentminded if Richie didn’t watch the blush glow on his cheeks, or, on one fateful occasion, they would come home tired from school and decide to take a nap and Richie would lay down and Eddie would lay down on top of him under the guise of teasing and they would both fall asleep like that. Richie privately liked that time the best, because Eddie seemed so  _ peaceful _ with his head on Richie’s chest and Richie was filled with a sudden burning desire to make him that relaxed for the rest of his life, which was so out of line with just about every other interaction he’d had with Eddie that he startled hard enough to wake him up. 

They didn’t talk about telling the others, or Richie’s all-consuming fear of himself, or the nasty things Eddie’s mom liked to say about  _ homosexuals _ on the nights Richie stayed for dinner. It didn’t need to be said. It was better left ignored and they both knew it.

Even silently, he loved Eddie. He loved Eddie for his velcro shoes and for the alarm beeping in his watch and his big doe eyes that made Richie feel like swooning— _ oh, Edward, I feel I might faint! _ —and his snippy attitude that melted right away when he got scolded by an adult. Every little bit of Eddie made Richie’s heart sing like it was trying out for the after-school choir, and not even something as insignificant as keeping it a secret would put a damper on his feelings.

For the time being, they didn’t need to think about big, scary things. All Richie needed to think about was the fluttering in his chest, and the idea that Eddie felt that same fluttering. Smiling to himself, Richie reached over to Eddie and linked their pinkies. He couldn’t wait for the day he’d feel brave enough to kiss the tiny grin on his lips.

—

“Obviously, the answer is 7-Up. What other drink would taste good with fries?”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Rich? No. No, no, no. Mountain Dew would be perfect!”

“Eds, you and I both know that’s wrong. Bill, back me up.”

“Buh-both of you are wrong. Coke would be the b-beh-best.”

“Nah, I think root beer would be the best. The sweetness would go well with the salt.”

“C’mon, Mike. It’s Fanta. That would actually taste good with fries dipped in it.”

“I think Beverly’s right. Fanta sounds good with it.”

“Oh, shut up, Haystack. Fanta’s such a wimpy answer. Ya know what I bet would be good?”

“...What?”

“Pickle juice!”

A chorus of groans met Richie’s latest suggestion to the debate, and he grinned. In the three weeks that had passed since his short-lived attempt at going solo, he’d done his best to be even more boisterous than usual—if he was loud enough, no one would be able to question him, and it seemed to have worked. It didn’t hurt that the Tozier household had remained the winter meeting ground, either. He glanced around his family’s living room at all of his friends scattered across it and prepared to defend his claim. He knew it was gross, but it was worth it to see the rage simmering in Eddie’s eyes.

“You don’t think so? I think it would add just the right amount of flavor to them!”

“Pickle juice isn’t even a soda! You’re missing the whole point of the conversation!” Eddie seethed. His hand was warm in Richie’s underneath the blanket, though, so Richie wasn’t bothered in the slightest. It didn’t deter the rant, however. “We were talking about what the best soda to dip fries in would be, not the grossest liquid imaginable. I bet you don’t even want to eat that at all! You’re probably just saying it to piss me off!”

“Aw, c’mon. Don’t doubt my raccoon-like cravings. They don’t call me Trashmouth for nuthin’!” Richie jeered, leaning into Eddie’s space. “‘Sides, I can think of much grosser liquids to dip fries in, if you catch my drift.”

Eddie shrieked.

“Are you—NO! Oh my God you must be joking that’s so gross— Stan! What soda do  _ you _ think would be best to dip fries in?”

“Leave me out of this,” Stan said. “Why would I want my fries to be soggy? Not to mention the salt in my drink. No thanks.”

“Staaan,” Richie whined. “Live a little!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Don’t be such a grouchy old man,” Richie said in his best Grouchy Old Man Voice. Picking up an old newspaper from the coffee table, he dropped the Voice and threw the paper at Stan. “Join us in the twentieth century! 

Being that the paper was open, it didn’t fly so much as it flipped its pages and landed unceremoniously in front of Mike. From the open page stared a picture of a boy about their age, followed by EDWARD CORCORAN written in bold font and a short obituary beneath it. The room fell quiet.

Richie’s stomach buzzed anxiously. For some reason, Ed Corcoran’s eyes seemed to stare at him from the picture, and he couldn’t find it in himself to look away or crack a joke. After what could’ve been years and years of silence, Bill spoke.

“Did you hear? Th-they said he was attacked by w-wuh-wolves. The police f-found his arm all chewed up be-before they found his body.”

“He asked to borrow a pencil once,” Ben said mournfully. “I wish I’d known him.”

“So, what? Did the wolf attacks just start back up?” Beverly asked. Richie admired her—how could she not be gripped by the same fear he was? The same fear that had Eddie’s hand clamming up against his? But then Ben shook his head, and Richie realized that maybe they were all scared. Maybe they just had different ways of showing it.

“They didn’t ever stop, not really. There’s been one kid killed by a wolf every month since October, starting with Georgie. The only month that didn’t happen was December,” Ben explained, shooting a pointed look at Richie and Eddie that made Richie sweat and drop Eddie’s hand. He just looked contemplative, but it was too much for Richie.

“Is this wolf only hungry once a month, then? I mean, it’s not like one kid is a huge meal. Does it just wait for the calendar to switch and then say  _ oh, looks like I’m hungry! _ ” Richie asked. He hoped his voice didn’t sound as shaky to the others as it did to him.

“Not exactly. It’s not random dates, it’s—”

“Every fuh-full moon,” Bill said, shooting a look at Ben for confirmation. He nodded solemnly and Bill frowned hard. “It’s luh-like it’s a werewolf or something.”

Fear coursed through Richie at the suggestion, only growing in strength when no one seemed willing to argue. That wasn’t to say that they were happy to accept it—Stan looked downright  _ angry _ about it—but no one else seemed as gripped by fear as Richie was. He set his jaw and hoped no one would notice it quiver.

“Big Bill, I hate to break it to ya, but there’s no such a thing as werewolves! All that caffeine musta got ya thinkin’ silly!” Richie cried, Voice unintelligible through the shaking in his words. Bill’s frown only grew stronger.

“You duh-don’t know that. It m-makes sense.”

“No! It doesn’t!” Stan said, and Richie had never been more grateful for someone else’s outburst. “They aren’t  _ real _ , Bill.”

“Finally, someone sensible! Listen, do you hear yourselves?” Richie asked. He let his voice fall soft as he stood up to approach Bill. “I know that you feel guilty about Georgie, but it’s not healthy to focus on it, Bill. Just—accept that it wasn’t your fault and don’t drag everyone into your revenge mission, because this is a wild animal and it’s  _ dangerous. _ ”

“He has a point, Richie. It was a full moon the night Eddie Corcoran went missing, and I bet it was every other time, too. You can’t deny it just because you’re afraid,” Beverly said, and Richie felt like he could cry.

“I’m not— They’re not real! Werewolves don’t exist! Do you hear yourselves?”

Bill grit his jaw and shoved Richie away from him. Richie hadn’t even realized how close they’d become until he was pushed away, nearly backed into the coffee table the paper had been laying on. Being who he was, Richie pushed him right back and then felt the sharp crack of knuckles against his cheek. He stumbled back in pain as the Losers lept into action, but Richie didn’t need the arms holding him back. He was too afraid to fight, too afraid to do much more than shrink in on himself and back away. 

“Get out of my house,” he said, and hoped everyone would ignore the way his voice shook. He shook off the arms around him and turned to run to his room.

(He tried to ignore Mike’s innocent question heard all the way downstairs:  _ “Wasn’t Richie bitten on a full moon, too?” _ Even if Mike didn’t mean anything by it, there was no way to avoid the weight that sat like iron on Richie’s chest as the thought rang out in his mind.)

Okay. So. Judging by, well, everything in his life right about then, Richie was a werewolf and that was the  _ least _ of his worries (or maybe not, but sue him for being dramatic, will you?)

The others  _ knew _ . They had to know, and they were evidently out for the wolf’s blood, but what if they came after him, too? What if they realized that he was a threat and a hazard and they didn’t actually want him around that much, anyways? What if they decided he’d be better off dead before he hurt someone, too?

Richie really didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he didn’t want to lose his friends, and he definitely didn’t want to die. He was just a kid! He wouldn’t even have his thirteenth birthday until a month and a half later, he wasn’t ready to die! But God, what if he ended up hurting someone? Was there anything he could do when he didn’t even remember what he  _ did _ during the last full moon?

Suddenly, his room didn’t seem like such a safe place anymore. The deep grooves scratched into the dresser seemed to sneer at him, an ugly reminder of what he  _ knew _ he’d done even if he couldn’t remember it. His mind suddenly turned to a movie he’d seen a few years before.

Once his dad had seen  _ An American Werewolf in London _ in theaters, he’d quickly decided it was one of his favorite movies and had rented it on VHS at the next available opportunity to show Richie, but Richie had never liked it. He couldn’t help but imagine how terrifying it would be to be out of control of his own body and mind, how much anger and fear must have built up in David before he died at the end of the movie. It wasn’t his fault he was so full of sadness and anger, that he was hated for something inside him that he couldn’t control. Wentworth had called it a horror comedy, but Richie couldn’t bring himself to find it very funny.

Richie felt like David in that moment. He was unsure of what to do next or how to deal with anything going on. It all just felt like too  _ much _ , all of his thoughts and feelings pounding inside his head and demanding an explanation he couldn’t provide. 

Something  _ thudded _ hard at his bedroom door. Richie frowned, before—

“Richie! Come  _ out! _ I need to ice that before it bruises!”

Eddie’s voice carried through the door like it wasn’t there, and Richie sighed. He stood from his bed and unlocked the door for Eddie to barrel through, armed with a baggy of ice and a damp towel. He looked absolutely  _ furious. _

“If you don’t ice it, it’ll swell and you’ll look like you fell down the stairs. Let me help, will you?” Eddie grumbled, and Richie knew he wasn’t actually looking for an answer. Before he could figure out a good ice-related joke, Eddie interrogated him further.

“Hey, what was up earlier? You just got all… freaked out. Was it 'cause of the, y'know… Attack? Also, what the hell happened to your room? Did you go on a cleaning spree? Where are your curtains? And what's up with your dresser, dude? Has it always been that beat up?"

"Jeez, Eds, one question at a time," Richie said, forcing a chuckle that hopefully wouldn’t betray the fear he felt. Eddie just glared at him and pressed the ice pack against his cheek until Richie sighed and shook his head. “Look, I don’t really wanna talk about this right now.”

“That’s so unfair! You can’t just kick us all out because you’re mad at Bill or whatever. It doesn’t even make sense why you’re upset. Like, we were just talking about…”

Silence filled the room as Eddie trailed off, realization clear in the way his hand icing Richie’s cheek faltered. The breath caught in Richie’s throat, and he begged silently  _ please, please, don’t let him understand. Don’t let me be right. _

Because he couldn’t even think it. The answer to everything should be so glaringly obvious, painting everything from the past two months in a new, clearer light, but it kept getting choked in Richie’s mind. He got as far as  _ I’m a— _ and it would freeze, because how could it be true? How could it make sense?

But Eddie was not one to beat around the bush. Once he knew the truth to things, he wouldn’t hesitate to make his thoughts known. And even if his grades weren’t as good as Richie’s, he wasn’t stupid. Richie knew what he was going to say before Eddie said it, but he knew it would still hurt like a slap to the face.

“Richie, are— Are you a werewolf?” 

Eddie’s voice was quiet, level in a way it so rarely was, but it still rang out like a gunshot in Richie’s room. It echoed in his mind, and to his immediate horror, he felt his eyes burn even as they were squeezed shut.

_ I’m a werewolf. I, Richie Tozier, am not human anymore. _

_ What will people think? _

A sob escaped before Richie could even realize it was building up, and he hiccuped in mortification. Eddie startled away from him and Richie just—folded. He had been doing all he could to ignore the fear that had rattled inside him for weeks, hiding it in Voices and jokes and holding Eddie’s hand, but underneath it all he was  _ terrified _ , and once Eddie had pointed it out it was all he could do not to crumple into the smallest ball he could, all folded edges like he was the world’s ugliest origami. 

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel Eddie’s panic radiating off of him in waves, but he still wasn’t touching Richie anymore. It just made Richie cry harder, thoughts a mess of  _ untouchable unlovable great going you fucked it up and you didn’t even do anything _ even as Eddie’s hand landed tentatively on his shoulder.

“Rich, I— Are you okay? I swear I didn’t expect to make you cry, otherwise I wouldn’t have said anything. I just assumed— But then you started crying and you  _ never _ cry and you’ve been so weird lately, are you okay? Did I— Is it me? I didn’t mean to make you cry, I’m sorry!”

Richie could barely breathe, but everything in him screamed for him to run away as fast as he could. He settled for shaking his head  _ no _ , another sob wracking his body as he hunched inward. 

To Richie’s shock, he felt Eddie’s arms wrap around his shoulders as he encircled him in a hug. He didn't say anything, just rubbed gentle circles into his back and hushed him as he cried. It made Richie feel safe in a way he so rarely felt in Derry; it wasn't long until his sniffles became fewer and further between.

"'M sorry," Richie hiccuped into Eddie's shoulder. "I was just so scared. I don't know what to do."

"No, hey, it's okay," Eddie assured. "I just— are you? Is that what's been going on?"

Richie felt Eddie tug on his glasses and finally blinked his eyes open to see Eddie's blurry form cleaning tears from them carefully on his shirt. His heart clenched painfully as Eddie slid them back onto his face before he remembered the question.

"I don't know," Richie mumbled. "It's just been weird. It's like… Y'know a few weeks ago when we hung out? And we, uh…"

Eddie's face flushed pink, but he didn't seem deterred. He nodded decisively.

"Okay, well… I felt all sortsa buzzy that night, and at first I was like  _ duh, my dick is just aching for a taste of freedom— _ "

"Gross, Richie!"

"—But it definitely wasn't that, because the next morning I woke up and instead of a cramp in my wrist, my reward for the night was that my room was pretty much trashed."

"Wait, really? Like… it was torn apart?"

"Yeah, man. It looked like a shredder had taken its revenge across the room and torn as much shit to shreds as possible.” Richie wanted to be open for Eddie, honest, but the words were burning on his tongue like acid. Jeez, how did it make any sense that he could cry like a baby but he couldn’t actually  _ explain _ his feelings? He slipped into a Voice shamefully and hoped against hope that Eddie wouldn’t see through it like a ruse. “Really scary, innit? Felt like a roight monsta’, ain’t that the truth. Opened my eyes and said  _ what’s all this, then? _ and hadda scrub ‘er down ‘fore I could do nuthin’ else. Roight frightening, that was.”

“You’re not a monster, Rich,” Eddie whispered, and all of his defenses crumpled like plastic. He felt the sting of tears return to his eyes with a vengeance and sniffled. Eddie frowned. “Aw, Richie, don’t cry. It’s— You’re okay. No one’s gonna hate you for this.”

“I’m scared, Eds,” he admitted quietly. “What if I hurt someone?”

“You won’t. I know you won’t.”

“How could you possibly know something like that? You don’t know what it’s like.”

The look Eddie fixed him with was so intense that Richie thought imprints of his gaze might be tattooed on his body for the rest of his life and until he was eaten by worms. Richie had to look away from the strength of it, the meaning behind it lost to him. He swallowed hard around the imaginary lump in his throat, a big hairball of emotions he had to force out through Voices and jokes that rarely got any chucks. It ate at him, sometimes, the way he couldn’t truly be honest, but it didn’t worry him at that moment because he knew Eddie saw right through him. It was like he had laser eyes, slicing Richie through the center and staring straight into his heart thumping nervously away like it had something to prove the way it always did when someone got too close of a look.

“You’re not a monster, Richie. You’re— Shit, don’t make fun of me for saying this, but you’re really really good. Like, you’re basically a good person by default. You kicked that fuckin’ wolf away from me, you know? And I was just frozen. I don’t think you could hurt someone if you wanted to. I mean, you only pushed Bill ‘cuz he pushed you first, and then when he hit you, you didn’t hit him back!”

Richie sniffed.

“Yeah, I’m a wimp, I get it. No need to kick me while I’m down, dude.”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Eddie huffed. “You gotta listen to me. You aren’t gonna hurt anyone, trust me!”

Richie wasn’t exactly convinced, but he knew Eddie was one stubborn son of a bitch, so he sighed and nodded in defeat. Maybe the fib was worth it for the way Eddie’s face slipped into a smile like it was nothing, and maybe it was. Maybe Richie was making a—what was the saying? A mountain out of an anthill? Something like that. Maybe Richie was just an ant crawling around on the ground and staring at his little mountain in front of him, going  _ wow, there’s no way I’ll ever climb that! _ right before a big ol’ foot wearing velcro sneakers came along and stomped it flat and Richie with it. Sure made the hill easier to climb when it was flat. 

“Alright,” he conceded just to see Eddie’s grin grow. “You’re right, I’m just about harmless. Don’t you worry a pretty little hair on your head over me, Spaghetti, ‘cause I’m just fine.”

“Good. That’s good. Hey, you wanna read that new  _ Invasion! _ series? I got the first volume yesterday.”

It was an obvious out, but Richie was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, if Eddie wanted to read comics with him still, he wasn’t going to say no. 

—

Saturday arrived with a vengeance. Before Richie even opened his eyes, he could feel the same tingling sensation he felt the day he turned his bedroom into a mild crime scene. He groaned and buried his face deeper into his pillow. Maybe, he reasoned, if he went back to sleep he could ignore the fear already gripping his heart when he thought about what the weird feeling meant. That had to work, right?

Except that he definitely couldn’t go back to sleep, not when he felt like he’d been injected with adrenaline mixed with pop rocks and glitter. It was like his body was screaming at him  _ get ready for round two! _ Thanks, body, he got it. No need to spell it out for him.

Richie clambered out of bed with a groan. Just because he was awake didn’t mean he had to enjoy it, even if he knew that his parents would be happy to see him out of bed before noon on the weekend. Defeated, he trudged his way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Well good morning!” Maggie said from the table. She and Wentworth both had half-eaten bowls of boring adult cereal in front of them. Richie hoped he’d never reach the point where he ate that on purpose. “Didn’t expect to see you up so early.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Richie said. He grabbed a much more respectful box of Cap’n Crunch and dumped it into a bowl. He poured the milk with a flourish that made his dad chuckle and slid into his seat at the table. “Thought I oughta switch it up and try a morning at some point.”

“What’s the review so far? Worth seeing your parents every once in a while?” Wentworth teased, dipping his spoon into Richie’s bowl to steal some of his cereal.  _ Knew he couldn’t actually like that bland shit. _ Richie slipped into his best news anchor Voice. 

“The weather’s cold this morning, I’ll tell ya. Expect ice on the roads and be on the lookout for sneaky criminals stealing your cereal. Ayuh, there’s no tellin’ who’s gonna turn dark when the cold makes honest men of us like this. Traffic’s lookin’ good, so don’t worry about getting to your hot date downtown. It may even be worth rolling out of bed for, every once in a while! Now, here’s Wentworth with current events. Take it away, Went.”

“Thanks, Richard,” his dad said, pitching his own voice up into something tonal and nasally. “We’ve got quite a rare occurrence today. The elusive son has shown his face before the sun has even reached its peak. We’re not sure what it means, but some are theorizing there’ll be six more weeks of winter. In the meantime, make sure to embarrass him as much as possible before he disappears again. We recommend home videos—they’re all the rage lately!”

“Boys,” Maggie scolded, but the effect was dimmed by her amused smile. “Why don’t you actually let him eat, Went? He’s a growing boy, he needs it.”

“I haven’t actually grown any more in the last few weeks, you know,” Richie said around a mouthful of cereal. Maggie frowned at him.

“Manners, sweetheart. Have you not? I suppose that would mean it’s time to take you shopping, isn’t it?” 

“S’ppose so.”

Richie didn’t really want to go shopping with an undercurrent of adrenaline, though. As much as he would appreciate wearing something that wasn’t an inch too short again, he was pretty sure that his already-short attention span would fizzle out of existence if he tried anything that took even a little concentration. He wasn’t sure how to explain that, though, so he decided on the next-best option and shoveled cereal into his mouth.

“I can take you after breakfast if you’d like,” she said. “Do you have any other plans today?”

There must have been some higher power that liked Richie enough to take pity on him, because the phone chose that moment to ring. Richie jumped to his feet and ran into the living room, swallowing a mouthful of cereal to answer in his best French Voice.

“Zis is ze Toh-zee-ay house. Please state your business, mi amor,” he said, and the answering sigh made him grin.

“Hi, Richie,” Ben said. He didn’t sound annoyed because he was a sweetheart and accepted all of Richie’s voices at face value, which Richie appreciated very much. 

“Haystack! How do you do?”

“I’m alright. I was calling to ask if you wanted a ride to Stan’s house later. My mom is gonna drive me and I wasn’t sure if your parents were home to take you over.”

“Yeah, they’re here. Wait, Stan’s house?”

“Yes?” Ben said, though it sounded more like a question than an answer. “He just got a new TV, remember? We were gonna go over to watch movies and stuff tonight.”

Richie hadn’t remembered, actually. He swore under his breath.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t think I can go after all. Something came up and I’ve gotta stay home today, sorry.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

Ben was far too perceptive, even if he was just being caring. Richie plastered a smile onto his face that he hoped carried into his voice and lied.

“Yup! My old man’s making me help fix stuff up around the house. You’d love it, actually.”

“Did you want help?” Ben asked. He actually sounded excited, the dork. Richie laughed.

“Nah, he said it’s important for me to learn how to do this stuff. Helps me become a man, ya know?”

“I guess so. I’ll tell the others you can’t make it, alright? I hope you have fun.”

“Yeah, thanks. Seeya, Ben.”

Richie sighed as the line clicked silent. He didn’t like lying to his friends any more than he had to, and he definitely didn’t like missing out on hanging out with everyone. Still, it was for the best. He couldn’t very well explain running away into the woods to turn into a goddamn wolf in the middle of  _ Jaws _ , could he? Better to stay home where no one would be any the wiser.

—

Turns out, sitting around all day waiting for it to be nighttime so that he could wait for it to be morning again was incredibly boring, especially when he felt like he’d snorted a bunch of bees and had them all buzzing around in his bloodstream. He’d made up some excuse to his parents about staying in his room and had shut himself off once more. He was pretty sure they saw right through him, but that was alright. He just needed one day to himself before everything could be normal again.

But Richie was  _ bored. _ He read every comic he owned, tried an actual book and gave up after ten minutes, tried to take a nap but failed after staring at the ceiling for half an hour, tried to take Bill’s lead and doodled, realized that he sucked at art, and circled back to his comics again. He hadn’t touched  _ Wolverine _ in his reread—it felt a little too close to home—but he gave in eventually. 

He was in the middle of reading the first volume and trying to ignore any weird feelings when he heard something  _ plink _ off his window. Richie shuffled over to it in confusion and peered down at Eddie with a handful of pebbles. Their eyes met and Eddie blinked, dropping his pebbles onto the old snow. Richie yanked the window open.

“What the fuck?” Richie called down. Eddie frowned.

“Are you okay?” Eddie asked, and the look he gave Richie was… pointed. Richie didn’t appreciate how much it felt like Eddie knew exactly why he was there, so he shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Dude, did you show up just to ask that? I’m pretty sure even the Uris house has a phone.”

Eddie’s frown only grew. He shuffled a little on the ground before speaking.

“I’m coming up there,” he said definitely, and then turned on his heels and walked away. 

Richie felt lost. What  _ was _ that? But he knew that Eddie was a man of his word, so Richie slid the window shut again and turned to the door where, a minute later, Eddie was pushing his way into the room.

“Eds, I appreciate the attention, but I told you I’m fine. No need to dote,” Richie said, fidgeting a little with the edge of his abandoned comic. 

“Tonight’s the full moon, right?” Eddie asked bluntly. Richie gulped and nodded. Eddie returned the gesture and walked over to where Richie was sitting on his bed. “Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

“Uh, not really,” Richie admitted. “I was kinda just planning on sitting in my room until it was over.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Eddie said decisively. He sat down and Richie gaped.

“You— What? You can’t do that!”

“Why not? You’re gonna be alone and that’s boring. I might as well, right?” Then Eddie turned away, flush coloring the tips of his ears, and said, “I mean, it’s what a boyfriend would do, right?”

That was enough to tamper any arguments Richie had on his tongue. He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the heat flooding his cheeks, because hearing the word  _ boyfriend _ regarding Eddie still made him tongue tied and fluttery in a different way than the adrenaline-fueled tingling sitting heavy in his stomach and electifying his body. He nodded reluctantly. How could he say no after Eddie said that? 

Eddie grinned and settled more comfortably into the bed. Richie shuffled next to him and fidgeted nervously. The silence begged for a Voice or a joke, but he was coming up blank. He peered at Eddie.

“So, uh, what now?” he asked. Eddie frowned quizzically at him.

“How should I know? Didn’t you do this before?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Richie shrugged. “I don’t really remember it, though.”

“Oh,” Eddie said. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

—

Waking up the next morning was one of the strangest feelings Richie had felt in a while, which was impressive considering the past few months of his left had seemed to consist entirely of strange feelings. The night before felt like a dream, all hazy and unfamiliar. Unlike the first full moon, he remembered some of the night, but it felt more like a weird blur of activity that mostly came up blank when he thought too hard about it. He remembered looking down at himself and seeing gangly wolf limbs instead of gangly human limbs, go figure, and Eddie doing— something. Richie wasn’t really sure what.

The realization that Eddie had been there was enough to startle Richie the rest of the way into consciousness. He propped himself up onto his elbows and frantically glanced around the room. It didn’t seem to be any different than it had been the day before, and Eddie was lying in bed next to Richie, still sleeping peacefully. Richie took comfort in his soft snoring. He didn’t  _ remember _ hurting Eddie, but he didn’t remember a lot of things, so. 

It was nice to have confirmation that Eddie was safe and sound.

That was another thing. He couldn’t remember most of the night, but Eddie would probably know what happened. That… was a scary thought. Eddie didn’t  _ seem _ upset, judging by his mostly-pleasant expression in Richie’s foggy memories and the way he was curled up next to him, but that didn’t guarantee anything. He could’ve been trying to keep his reaction tame just so he didn’t get mauled by a wolf in an enclosed space. That seemed sensible to Richie.

Oh well. It wasn’t worth worrying about when he couldn’t even remember whether his anxieties had come true or not. He glanced back at Eddie.

Without the curtains Richie had thrown away a month before, there was nothing stopping the sunlight from landing on Eddie’s face. It illuminated him in a sort of golden glow and made Richie’s heart do a little leap. He decided suddenly that he would wait for Eddie to wake up on his own, because as much as he liked tormenting him, Richie was just as satisfied seeing the peaceful expression on his face when no one would know he was looking.

Sighing, he let himself fall back onto the bed. Whatever had happened would be the same after a few more hours of sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for panic attacks and just general unhappiness
> 
> chapter 4 is going to be the last real chapter! chapter 5 will be an epilogue from eddie's pov :-) i'm really excited to write them bc i've had them in mind since the start and it'll hopefully be a good payoff!
> 
> as always, please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed! they truly fuel me and this fic-writing process :')


	4. i hand my legs to the feet and i give my head to the leash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers get caught up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! life got batshit very quickly (but i'm sure you know that.) hopefully this chapter makes up for the wait!
> 
> title from imposter syndrome by sidney gish

“So, Eds. Got any fun stories to tell from last night?”

Eddie blinked up at Richie from across the table, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He swallowed his bite of waffle ( _ thank you, Wentworth, for being the best dad basically ever _ ) before he spoke.

“Do you not remember what happened?” he asked. Richie’s stomach plummeted. 

“Uh, not really. I mean, I remember bits and pieces but it’s all sort of… fuzzy? Like trying to remember something that happened years and years ago.” Richie tapped his temple with his fork. "It's all scrambled around up here."

Eddie nodded in understanding even as he winced when syrup clung to a curl on Richie's forehead. His eyebrows were still drawn, though. Richie wanted to joke to make them relax, but he wanted to know what happened even more. 

“Not too much happened, actually. Obviously you turned into a wolf, which was pretty scary, but I brought you some leftover chicken my mom made the other day and you seemed happy to chew on that.”

“Really?” Richie asked. Once Eddie mentioned it, he could vaguely remember eating, but it wasn’t really clear. The word  _ scary  _ bounced around in his head, but Eddie didn’t seem bothered if the way he moved past it meant anything.

“Uh-huh. After that, we just sort of hung out. You pretty much just acted like yourself, except that you couldn’t talk. It was weird to hear you so quiet when you weren’t sleeping.”

That came as a surprise to Richie. For some reason, he’d been imagining a total shift in personality, a Richie-turned-evil type of thing. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he apparently was no different when he was a wolf than when he was a human.

“Really?” he asked. “I didn’t, I dunno, lash out or anything?”

“Nah. Well, during the transformation I sort of… held you down? Which sounds really bad but you were thrashing around and it looked like it hurt a lot so I sort of grabbed your wrist and then you stopped moving around so much and just kinda stared at me? So I kept doing it until it was over but you seemed fine so I thought it was okay.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine.” Richie paused, pushing a forkful of waffle idly through a puddle of syrup on his plate. “But I didn’t hurt you or anything, right?”

“What? No.” Eddie frowned. “I’m fine.”

“Oh,” Richie said again. “That’s cool.”

He focused back on his breakfast and watched as Eddie did the same, scarfing down the food on his plate like it was— well, like it was homemade breakfast on a Sunday morning. Richie entertained himself by trying his best Voices through mouthfuls of syrup and felt giddy as Eddie shrieked in laughter and called him gross. The sugary-sweet taste sticking on his tongue felt like it flowed through his whole body as Eddie recounted a story about a cool car he saw excitedly. It made him feel stupid happy to listen to Eddie’s enthusiasm.

Once they finished eating, they took their plates to the sink, because Richie might’ve been adverse to cleaning but he wasn’t a total asshole of a son. Eddie dried the dishes after Richie scrubbed them, and for some reason, even that made Richie’s heart skip a beat. Jeez, how far gone did he have to be for  _ dishes _ to make him feel like a romantic?

“Hey, did you wanna tell the others about this?” Eddie asked eventually, pausing his attempt at drying a glass to look meaningfully at Richie. He gulped.

“What, that we’re doing dishes like an old married couple?” Richie joked. Eddie flushed and glared, which was a pretty combination in Richie’s eyes.

“I mean, that too, I guess. I meant about the whole werewolf thing, though. You asked if I had any good stories from it to tell anyone.”

“Oh. I guess I did, huh?” He paused, considering it. He hadn’t really planned on telling  _ anyone, _ let alone all of his friends, but… Well, he didn’t really like keeping secrets from them, even if sometimes it felt like that was all he ever did. And Eddie knew, and if Eddie didn’t mind, then would any of them? Still, it was a scary thought. “Do you think I should?”

Eddie shrugged. The tips of his ears were still pink but he had stopped glaring and just looked contemplative instead.

“It’s not like it’s anything bad, so I don’t think it would hurt. Maybe—” He flushed darker. “Maybe if they take that well we can tell them the other thing? The, um, dating, I mean.”

Well that was certainly an incentive. Richie wasn’t too keen on telling people things that could make them hate him, but if Eddie thought it was no big deal, then it had to be fine, right? 

“Sure thing, Spaghetti. Say, they’re probably still at Stan’s house, right?”

—

One perk of it being a Sunday was that Richie’s parents were both home and willing to drive him and Eddie to the Uris house, even though it was really only a block away and they could probably have walked. It meant that they could secretly hold hands in the back seat and exchange sneaky looks while Richie’s dad chatted with them from behind the wheel. They were only in the car for a minute, but it still managed to make Richie feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That comfortable feeling lasted until Eddie knocked on the door and it opened to reveal Andrea Uris and it hit Richie that  _ shit, they’re actually gonna know. _ He pushed the feeling down and rushed past her into the living room despite her exasperated sigh. He was vaguely aware of Eddie pausing to apologize before he followed, hot on his heels. Richie paused as he entered the room.

Stan, Mike, Ben, and Bill were spread across the room, still sleeping heavily. It wasn’t terribly early, but if Stan’s new TV was any good, they were probably up late watching movies. Not that he and Eddie had been much better—he was sure Mrs. K was going to have an aneurysm when she saw the bags under his eyes—but it was still funny to Richie to see everyone sleeping in. He nudged Eddie and gestured to where everyone was sprawled out.

“Guess Bev couldn’t stay, huh?” he stage-whispered, because he wasn’t sure his voice could go much quieter than that. Eddie nodded.

“Yeah, she left around the same time that I did. Her dad doesn’t want her staying out late, you know, and Mr. and Mrs. Uris didn’t want a girl spending the night.” Eddie shrugged. “Guess she won’t be here when we tell them, huh?”

That seemed unfair to Richie. Why should they leave her out just because she was a girl? He shook his head and headed into the kitchen, where Don and Andrea were talking dully about something Richie didn’t care enough to listen into. He cleared his throat meaningfully and tried not to slump when they looked at him with annoyance clear on their features.

“Can I use your phone, Mrs. Uris? It’ll only be a minute, promise,” he asked, trying to keep his voice as polite as possible. She sighed and gestured toward it. He grinned. “Thanks!”

Calling Bev was usually reserved for emergencies, but Richie definitely thought being a werewolf was important enough. The phone rang idly for a few moments before it clicked on.

“Hello?” Bev said, voice tinny and a little tense over the speaker. Richie knew not to press for time.

“Miss Marsh! How lovely to hear from you this morning! Listen, we’re having a special Losers meeting at Stan’s house. Can you make it over?”

“Richie?” she asked. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Everything okay?”

“Just peachy! Don’t you worry a pretty little hair on your head about it. Just—come over? Please.”

“Okay,” she said, and her voice sounded so determined that Richie’s heart swooped with love for her. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

The line went dead before Richie could say goodbye, but that was alright with him. He hung the phone back up and shot the Urises a smile, even though they’d gone back to their newspapers and cereal like the boring grown-ups they were.

In the time it took Beverly to show up, Mike had woken up and Stan had started to stir. Richie was beginning to feel nervous about what everyone would say when they woke up to find him, but Mike only seemed amused, if anything. He blinked sleepily at Richie and Eddie and then smiled. 

“‘Morning. Didn’t think you were coming,” Mike said around a yawn.

“Why, Mikey, I’ve been here all night!” Richie said, feigning a scandalized gasp. Then he shrugged and admitted, “Nah, I’m calling an emergency Loser meeting. Got something important to talk about. Bev’s on her way, too.”

“Everything okay?” Stan mumbled, finally cracking an eye open. Eddie nodded.

“It’s about why I left last night, sort of. There’s no problem, though.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully while Stan hummed in acknowledgement and sat up, stretching lazily and surveying Ben and Bill, still sound asleep. He sighed heavily.

“Should we wake them up?” Mike asked. Richie grinned deviously and cracked his knuckles theatrically.

“Leave it to me,” he said in an ambiguously European Voice and got to work.

By the time the doorbell rang, Richie had been smacked in the face with two different pillows, thoroughly chewed out by Bill, and banned from tickling “ever again,” which Richie took to mean “for the next hour.” It made him feel thrilled, warm with the love he always felt for his friends when he managed to make them laugh and get on their nerves at the same time.

When Bev saw the situation—Richie effectively scorned, Bill especially rumpled, and bedheads all around—she immediately burst into giggles that she didn’t even try to hide even as Ben blushed scarlet. Richie beamed.

“Molly Ringwald! So glad you could make it. Welcome in.”

“It’s my house,” Stan grumbled, but he didn’t look too annoyed. Richie shrugged him off and mimed picking up a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’re all just dying to know why I gathered you here today,” he said in his best announcer Voice, and then shifted it into something a little more ringmaster. “I’ve got tales to tell you’ll never believe! But alas, all of it is true!”

“W-What is it, Richie?” Bill asked, perpetually frowning. Richie pointed at him with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, trying to tamper down the burning fear buzzing in his ears.

“Why, Big Bill, I’m glad you asked! You remember your crapshot theory about werewolves in Derry?” He paused, gulping a breath and plastering on a smile that still felt shaky. “Turns out, it might not have been so far off after all.”

“What are you saying?” Stan asked, brows furrowed like they did when Richie made a particularly bad joke and he wanted Richie to know it. 

Richie hesitated. For as much as he could talk, the truth had a tendency to stick in his throat like people said old gum would when he swallowed it. The truth about him—the ugly truth, not just about being a monster but about the ugly parts of him that were entirely human and he was sure no one would ever like—was always hard to show without Voices and chucks to hide behind. Nervous, he found himself glancing helplessly at Eddie, who was looking back at him with an open, earnest expression. He opened his mouth to explain but couldn’t seem to make the words come out. Eddie nodded at him like he understood and cleared his throat.

“He’s saying that he’s actually a werewolf, and before you rag on him for making a shitty joke, I know he’s telling the truth because I saw him transform and it was real,” Eddie announced confidently. Everyone’s eyes darted between him and Richie, and Richie barely stopped himself from doing jazz hands in response. 

“Are you s-serious?” Bill asked, staring intently at Richie. He nodded.

“Last night was the full moon,” Eddie explained. “I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I spent the night over there instead.”

Bev nodded like that made perfect sense, and Richie had a funny feeling she understood more than she was letting on. He wondered if she was thinking about their conversation over smokes nearly a month earlier.

“Eddie, you knew?” Mike asked kindly. Eddie flushed lightly and nodded. Richie took a bracing breath.

“Seems like something you should tell your boyfriend, doesn’t it?” he said, hoping no one noticed the way his voice quivered. Everyone seemed surprised in a different way.

“Wait, really?” Bev asked excitedly. When Eddie smiled shyly in response, she said, “Guys, that’s great!”

No one seemed to be jumping at the opportunity to call them names or yell at them for being gross, to Richie’s guilty surprise. In fact, everyone seemed to be nodding or smiling in some way. Chancing a glance at Eddie, he saw a look of something like awe on his face that Richie was sure was reflected in his own expression. He had spent so long expecting everything to go directly into the shitter if he acted on his feelings that he wasn’t quite sure how to act when everything seemed to be just fine.

“Wait, but what about the werewolf thing? What are you  _ talking _ about?” Stan asked, and the cold pit in his stomach that had started to thaw when everyone reacted well to the whole  _ gay _ thing froze right back over. 

“Exactly what he said, Stan the man,” Richie replied with a forced-casual shrug. “Once a month, I go all wolf-man and then the next day I’m right back to normal. Puberty, ya’know?”

“But Eddie was there with you yesterday, right?” Ben asked. Eddie nodded.

“I went over right after I left here. That was the first time I’ve actually done that, though.” Eddie nudged Richie lightly. “We just sort of hung out the whole time. It’s kinda weird, but it’s—I think it’s fine, you know? It’s not like it’s a problem or anything.”

Richie’s heart fluttered annoyingly in his chest and he turned to Eddie.

“Well, shucks, you say such sweet things, Eddie my love!” he said, pinching Eddie’s cheek and hoping no one noticed the way his own cheeks were warm. “I should drool on you more often if it means you’ll be so nice!”

“Ugh, get off!” Eddie grumbled, but he didn’t do much more than swat Richie’s hand away. “And don’t even  _ think _ about drooling on me, that’s so gross, are you kidding? Why would you even want to do that?”

“Why, Eddie! A handsome fella like yourself, who wouldn’t drool over you?”

“Are you guys going to be like this all the time now?” Stan asked, but his eye roll said he already knew the answer. He focused his look on Richie, and it made him want to squirm with the intensity of it. “Anyways, that doesn’t make sense. Werewolves and stuff don’t exist.”

“Uh, I have some damaged furniture that would argue otherwise. Plus an eye witness account, and you know Eddie wouldn’t go along with my bits if I paid him.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Ha, but now he might, right Eds? My  _ bits? _ ”

“Dude, gross. No way,” Eddie said. “But yeah, I saw it. We wouldn’t lie about this, guys.”

“What’s up with your furniture, Rich?” Bev asked. She looked serious, but she still had a pleased little glint in her eye, almost like she was proud. It made Richie want to give her a hug and some smokes.

“I don’t really remember, honestly. I just woke up one day and it was all scratched up,” he admitted, even though it kind of made him feel like blowing chunks all over Stan’s coffee table. 

"You don't  _ remember _ but you let Eddie come over? Isn't that dangerous?"

"I didn't really  _ let— _ " Richie said, as Eddie said petulantly, "I decided to go over, it wasn't his choice."

"And honestly," Richie continued, a little louder, "I remember more from last night than the time before. Maybe Eds was all I needed, y'know? The secret ingredient in my brain."

"So no different than usual, then," Mike said, grinning at Richie. Richie shot him a finger gun.

"Right you are, Mikey. Our dear Spaghetti Head tames the beast within."

"Less of a beast and more of an overexcited puppy," Eddie grumbled. Richie couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up out of him.

"Eds gets off a good one!" he crowed. It felt so close to  _ normal _ that Richie could almost convince himself that they were just hanging out like usual. Which reminded him, actually... "Oh, Haystack, sorry for blowing you off yesterday. Thanks for offering a ride and all."

"Don't sweat it, Richie," Ben said. "I get it."

He smiled, and Richie grinned back. The group fell quiet in a way it so rarely was, and he fidgeted. What else could he say after spilling his guts?

"So," Stan finally said, "does anyone want breakfast?"

—

Despite how ground-breaking it felt to Richie, it didn’t seem like his revelations changed anything with his friends. Lunch on Monday was the same rubbery spaghetti as always, but no one looked at him any differently when he slurped loudly at the noodles and assured Eddie that he’d always be his favorite spaghetti. No one mentioned the wolf thing  _ or _ the gay thing, which had been unimaginable to Richie before he told them. It made him feel like he was invincible, like there was a weight lifted off his shoulders and he didn’t have to do quite so much to hide who he was. His friends wouldn’t treat him any differently.

Well, that wasn’t quite true.  _ Most _ of his friends wouldn’t.

Bill hadn’t spoken to Richie since he’d dropped the bombshell. Or rather, he didn’t talk to him beyond beeping him once and then pointedly turning to ask Ben about English homework. He kept sending him long looks, too, the kind that looked like he was thinking  _ I’m Bill Denbrough and I’m disappointed in you _ . Man, could Bill make Richie feel scolded.

Richie wasn’t even sure what he could do to fix it. He kept trying more and more jokes at him, slipping into even more outrageous Voices to try to make Bill laugh, but Bill had never been a quitter and the bad jokes just made everyone tell him to shut up, even as Eddie gave his hand a quick squeeze under the cafeteria table. 

He didn’t know how to win Bill back over. He just wished Bill would stop looking so damn  _ hurt _ every time he looked at Richie, like he’d waltzed right over to Witcham Street and kicked Bill’s puppy. If anything, Richie was the puppy being kicked!

_ (Weird thought. Don’t think too hard about that.) _

But Richie was determined to ignore it, and if that meant turning his head the other way and snorting bad spaghetti up his nose twice as loudly, then so be it. At least the rest of his friends were still talking to him.

—

February was by no means Richie’s favorite month. It was cold and wet and meant he couldn’t bike around and had to walk or ask for a ride instead. But February has its perks, especially once he and Eddie were official. Goin’ steady. Dating.

Namely, Valentine’s day.

In elementary school, Valentine’s day was just an excuse to eat candy and ignore the way Richie wanted to write a card for Eddie like the ones the girls gave the popular boys in class. He’d go home, stuff his belly with cheap chocolate, and forget about it was supposed to be some big, romantic holiday until his parents decided to call it “date night” and brought home a pizza for him before they went out to their restaurant, or whatever it was middle-aged couples did. It was a fine agreement for Richie.

But that was before Eddie had asked him out. Suddenly, Valentine’s day came with a new set of  _ implications. _ Richie wasn’t sure what it was he was supposed to do, exactly, but he knew he wanted to do  _ something. _ He asked him mom if Eddie could come over after school on Tuesday and ignored her amused little smile as she agreed. She didn’t even have to tease him about it—he knew he was blushing up to the roots of his hair without her mentioning it. 

Richie was all for passing notes in class, but passing a love letter made his palms sweat and knee bounce. Really,  _ “come over 2nite for temple of doom and pizza from my parents?” _ probably didn’t seem romantic, but again, the implications. He was inviting Eddie over to watch a movie—one that they’d seen a billion times, but still—on Valentine’s day! Of all days! And maybe they could hold hands while watching it, or cuddle, or both! Maybe Richie could get the courage up to kiss Eddie at the end of the movie and make him blush! 

He didn’t write any of that on the note, though. 

After reading the note, Eddie scrunched up his nose and gave Richie a funny look that sort of made his stomach feel like twisting up into heart-shaped knots. But his cheeks were pink and he nodded, so Richie counted it as a win. 

The day dragged on as slowly as it always did when Richie had to wait until the end to hang out with Eddie, but at least he didn't feel the same weird tingling he'd felt in the past. Instead, he had to occupy his mind by attempting to tap his pencil to the tune of different B-52's songs and passing games of tic-tac-toe back and forth under the desks until Eddie got caught scribbling out a game grumpily after Richie won  _ (again). _ But their class together was the last class of the day, so as soon as it ended, they ran into the hallway and off to Richie's house as quickly as they could.

They talked like normal as they walked, goofing around like any other day, but Richie couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances at Eddie whenever he could. The cold air made his cheeks and nose pink, and he looked so… light. Happy and relaxed in a way he rarely got to be, big eyes wide and alight. Sometimes, he was already looking back at Richie, and there was a little twinkle in his eye that made him hold the gaze for as long as he could, even as his cheeks grew hot and his glasses slipped down his nose. He’d fix his glasses, or Eddie would giggle, and then they’d start right back over, because it was  _ Valentine’s day _ and they were  _ seeing a movie, _ almost like a real date. Better, even, because at home they had dinner and they could talk as loudly as they wanted.

_ And we could hold hands and cuddle and maybe kiss and and and—! _

So Richie was a romantic. Sue him! It’s not his fault he was raised by his grossly-in-love parents. It’s  _ genetic, _ okay. 

And besides, it couldn’t be a bad thing to want Eddie to be happy, not when he was basically held captive by his mom. Richie wanted to let Eddie feel  _ free. _ If he felt like he was doing stuff because he wanted to do it, it was a win in Richie’s books. 

Plus, Indiana Jones. Who wouldn’t be excited to watch Indiana Jones?

When they got home, Richie’s mom was already there, doing… something in the kitchen. She called out a greeting to them as they shut the door, and Richie followed the sound to find her setting out a bunch of different ingredients. He grinned.

“Hey, Mom! What’cha makin’?”

“Hi, Richie. Eddie, sweetheart, it’s lovely to see you,” Maggie said, glancing up at them from where she was staring critically at a bag of flour. She grinned. “What are you boys up to today?”

“Watching Indiana Jones. We were gonna wait until this evening, though. Can we get a pizza like usual?”

“What kind of Valentine's day would it be without pizza?” she teased, and Richie grinned right back at her. “Do you want to help me make some cookies? I thought we could use up the rest of the milk while we wait for your dad to get off work.”

Richie wanted to tug Eddie off to his room, but when he glanced at him, he seemed so… excited. Like the very idea of baking with his mom sounded fun. So Richie shrugged and pushed Eddie into the kitchen, because as much as he was loath to admit it, he was pretty sure he’d do just about anything to make Eddie happy.

His mom seemed to see Eddie’s excitement, too, if the way she smiled at him like they had a secret was anything to go by. She got to work telling Eddie what to do, pointing out measuring cups and directing which ingredients to put in first. Richie couldn’t bite down the smile that forced itself onto his face as he watched.

“Are you going to help out, mister, or are you planning on staring all day?” she asked, waving a wooden spoon in front of his face and instantly breaking Richie out of his reverie. He felt his face heat up as Eddie snickered at him, and she gave him a look that was  _ far _ too knowing, what the fuuuck. Suddenly, she turned the spoon around so the handle faced him and poked it into his chest. “Here, start stirring.”

And so he did.

For some reason, he had thought that once people knew about him—not just about being a real, bona-fide werewolf, but about the way he felt about Eddie and couldn’t make himself feel about Bev—everything would change. Everyone would hate him and he would get so lonely that he’d explode with it, or they’d bully him even more than they already did, or they’d… He wasn’t sure. He didn’t let himself think about it. 

But the rest of the Losers had known both of those big, scary truths for over a week already, and nothing had really changed. No one had said anything about either, aside from a joke from Bev about being glad she knew at least  _ some _ of her friends didn’t have a crush on her while they smoked on Thursday. He’d sort of spluttered and coughed something out about  _ getting a little presumptuous, _ but he appreciated it. It was nice to see that she didn’t think it was weird or gross or anything like that, even if it still made him feel like burning up to talk about. 

It made him feel a little better. Like he wasn’t any sort of evil thing, but just a guy. Just Richie, strange as he may be. 

Baking cookies was fun, though, and made for a good distraction. At one point, Eddie ended up with a line of flour across the bridge of his nose, and Richie could just about  _ die _ from how cute it was. He made sure to tell him as much, pinching his cheek and calling him  _ cute, cute, cute! _ in a Voice that would hopefully distract his mom from the truth of the statement. But she only smiled as Eddie retaliated by spreading a track of flour across Richie’s cheek, so he thought he was probably okay whether she understood it or not. 

By the time the cookies were out of the oven, it was time for his mom to get changed and pick up his dad. Richie didn’t know what the purpose of dressing fancy was when they saw each other every day, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. She looked so happy when he helped zip her dress for her, he didn’t need to ruin it. He could stand to keep his trap shut for once. 

(Plus, she pressed a $20 into his hand as she walked out and told them to  _ behave, boys _ like it was a secret, so he wasn’t about to complain.)

So she left, and he called the local pizzeria and ordered in the same Italian Voice he always used while ordering pizza, and Eddie laughed at him when he choked on a cookie, and he didn’t think it could get better. And then the pizza arrived and the movie started and it  _ really _ couldn’t get better.

They finished the pizza before the nightclub brawl scene was over and were holding hands by the time Indiana Jones jumped out the window. It made Richie giddy with nerves, the way Eddie’s fingers were sticky with pizza grease between his the way Richie knew his were, too. There were crumbs from the cookies on his shirt, but Eddie still leaned into his side like it didn’t matter as much as he usually made a fuss about, and maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was okay to just be themselves, messy and greasy and sweet. 

Fuck, Richie wanted to kiss Eddie. 

It wasn’t like they hadn’t kissed before, but they hadn’t since the first time. He thought that Eddie might’ve still been embarrassed about it, even after Richie explained that it actually had nothing to do with him dropping off the grid. So he knew it would probably be okay, but it was really scary to even think about. He wanted to more than he wanted to do anything else ever, he thought, but it felt incredibly daunting. Just thinking about the way Eddie’s lips would probably taste like the pizza and cookies and his inhaler made Richie’s pulse speed up. Did inhalers have a taste? Richie wasn’t sure, but he squeezed Eddie’s hand tighter anyways, like he could figure it out if he just got close enough.

Full of food and warm emotions, Richie knew there was no way he was keeping his eyes open through the whole movie. He shuffled closer to Eddie until he could lean his head on Eddie’s shoulder and sighed contentedly as he rubbed his thumb over the back of Richie’s hand sweetly, and then he fell asleep.

“Richie. Hey, Rich. Wake up.”

Eddie’s voice was quiet, and Richie very nearly decided to bury his face back into his neck and go back to sleep when he realized  _ right, _ his  _ face _ was pressed right up against Eddie’s  _ neck _ . But Eddie didn’t sound angry—in fact, he sounded impossibly tender. Richie blinked himself awake and craned his neck to look up at Eddie. His cheeks were flushed a light pink and he was looking at Richie with an expression so soft that it made Richie want to squirm. Instead, with the bravery that came with still waking up and the constant ache in his heart that had Eddie’s name on it, he leaned up to press a kiss into Eddie’s cheek, letting his lips linger for what felt like a million years. When he finally pulled back, Eddie was red in the face and staring at him like— like— 

Like he was something precious and enigmatic. Like he couldn’t figure Richie out, but he wanted to try until he could. For once, Richie didn’t think it would be so bad if someone really, truly saw him.

“Um,” Eddie said, voice still quiet. “The movie’s over, and it’s almost 7. I was gonna call my mom and tell her to come get me.”

“Okay,” Richie said. He sat up and stretched, and his stomach fluttered when he realized his hand was still held firmly in Eddie’s.

—

For weeks, the big W-word went unmentioned. It was just another unspoken truth of the Losers Club that didn’t bear repeating—Richie mentally placed it in the same category as Georgie’s death and the assortment of bad parents scattered among the group. Why bother mentioning it when there was no way of changing it? Besides, it only really popped up once a month, anyways. Not like it mattered in the long run.

At least, that’s what Richie thought all through February. They all hung out as usual, and it wasn’t mentioned again until the month was almost over.

“Hey, Richie,” Stan said one day from the other side of the Tozier living room, where all of the Losers were sprawled out working on homework or pretending they were. “What do you wanna do for your birthday?” 

“Oh, shit, it’s almost March, isn’t it?” Bev asked. “Doesn’t that mean the full moon’s coming up soon?”

That got everyone’s attention. Honestly, Richie hadn’t really been thinking about it. He shrugged lazily.

“Guess so. Why, you waiting for my time of the month?” he jabbed, and she rolled her eyes.

“No, dipshit, I was just wondering what you were planning on doing that night. What did you do last time?”

“I just stayed in my room.” Bev’s eyebrows furrowed, and Richie rolled his eyes dramatically. “It’s not like there was anywhere else I could go, dude. If I ran away into the woods, I’d probably be shot.”

“Maybe there’s somewhere else we could go,” Ben mused, and Richie’s brain stuttered at  _ we, _ but no one else seemed to bat an eye. “Hey, Mike, is there space on your grandfather’s farm?”

“I think so,” Mike said. He shot Richie a meaningful smile. “The barn should have plenty of free space for babies in the spring. We can hang out there.”

“Wait, we?” Richie asked, and everyone nodded. 

_ (Except Bill, _ he thought bitterly.  _ Bill’s still pretending to be reading his book and ignoring me.) _

“Guys, I— Why do you want to? I don’t know what could happen, I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Eddie was with you last time and he was fine,” Stan pointed out, and Eddie nodded.

“Yeah, it was no big deal. The full moon is actually on your birthday, Richie, so I thought maybe we could all just… spend the night out? I know it’s a school night and it might be hard to get around everyone’s parents, especially my mom and especially for a sleepover, but I think it would be worth it, right? Even if a barn is super dirty and gross and probably full of infectious diseases which is super nasty actually so I would love to douse myself in hand sanitizer I think.”

“We can clean the barn, Eddie,” Mike suggested patiently. “And it’s not really dirty. It smells like sheep, but that’s because there are.”

“Aw, thanks, Mikey! We’ll help ya clean out those sheep, dont’cha worry a hair on your pretty little head over it,” Richie said in a cowboy Voice. 

“Well, yeah, I’d expect so. It’s for you, after all,” Mike teased.

And that was that. The topic shifted quickly to school, something about Ben and Bev’s social studies class that Richie didn’t know anything about. He went back to trying and failing to focus on math homework, distracted by the presence of his friends around him. Sure, he could  _ do _ it easily, but why should he when everyone was right there?

He decided to entertain himself in the best way he knew: by messing with his friends. He scooted closer to Stan and leaned conspiratorially into his space.

“Hey, Stan,” Richie stage-whispered. “Wanna hear my Indiana Jones impression?”

“What?” Stan asked. His brow furrowed as he looked up from his homework at Richie.  _ Score. _ “No. I’m doing homework. Go bother someone else.”

“Aww, what? It’s really good, though! Eddie heard it a few weeks ago, didn’t you, Eds?”

“You slept through that whole movie, Richie. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eddie responded, and then looked up to glare at Richie. “Also, don’t call me Eds. You know that.”

“Blasphemy!” Richie cried. “To think my good name has been scorned as such—”

“Beep beep, Richie,” Bev said from across the room, not even bothering to look up at him. Richie tried not to pout.

“Alright, fine, but don’t come crying to me in ten years when I’m super famous and charge a thousand dollars to hear it. Your loss.”

“Hey, R-Richie,” Bill said, and the room immediately fell silent with it. Bill hadn’t spoken to Richie in weeks, and hadn’t said a word since they’d all arrived at Richie’s house. Strangely, Richie’s heart began to race. “Can I t-talk to you? Alone, I mean.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure, Bill,” he said and stood, pretending he couldn’t feel the weight of everyone’s gazes on him. It would’ve been the perfect time to crack a joke, something about Bill wanting the premium voices in a private session, wink-wink-nudge-nudge, but he couldn’t find it in himself to say it. Bill always felt like he carried so much weight, like Richie would follow him to the ends of the earth if he had to. 

But Bill wasn’t asking him to follow him to the ends of the earth, as much as it felt like Richie was being led to the gallows. Just into the kitchen.

Bill fixed Richie with an intense gaze, and Richie squirmed with how  _ seen _ he felt. He wanted to say something, but what was there to say? Better to wait for Bill to decide on whatever it was he had to say than to piss him off even worse than he apparently already had. 

“How long have you been a wuh-werewolf?” Bill asked finally, and Richie frowned. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that.

“Uh, since December. Remember when I came to school with that big wolf bite?”

“Oh,” Bill said, and then fixed Richie with an impossibly more piercing gaze, like he was trying to read Richie’s mind. “So n-not October?”

The question hit Richie like a sack of bricks.  _ Of course Bill is wary around me, _ he thought.  _ I’m the same kind of monster that killed Georgie. _

Suddenly, he pictured Eddie sleeping next to him after the full moon, and he shuddered. Of course Bill would hate him, after Georgie was fucking mauled. But Richie didn’t want to hurt anyone like that, he didn’t want to hurt  _ Eddie _ like that (defenseless as he slept next to a wild animal, what was he  _ thinking, _ he could’ve been killed), but he didn’t want Bill to hate him. He couldn’t blame Bill if he did, but he also couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand to think that Bill would despise him, even if he was the same type of  _ thing _ that killed his little brother. Distantly, Richie thought he might have been shaking. The whole world turned blurry, and he wanted to explain to Bill more than anything that he  _ wasn’t, _ he wouldn’t hurt anyone like that, didn’t hurt Georgie like that, but he couldn’t get any words to come out. Trashmouth, finally silenced. 

“Um, hey,” someone said from the doorway, and Richie turned around to see Stan staring into the room, eyes flicking between the two of them. “What’s, uh, what’s wrong?”

Richie became suddenly, startlingly aware of the fact that he was crying, and immediately scrubbed at his face in mortification. Bill stood his ground and glanced at Stan.

“I was juh-just making sure Richie wasn’t the one in October. Thuh-that got Georgie, I mean.”

“I— No, I’m not, I swear. I don’t— I wouldn’t do that. I’m sorry,” Richie gasped out through strangled breaths, and Stan looked even more concerned.

“Bill, what? I mean, he’s not, right? Richie’s our friend. He wouldn’t do that, right?” Stan looked to Richie for an answer, and he couldn’t shake his head fast enough. No, no, no. “I mean, the whole werewolf thing doesn’t make sense, but… Even if you think about that, it’s not like Richie’s a monster or, or anything.”

“It’s better safe than sorry,” Bill said, and his lack of stutter felt like another punch to Richie’s face. It must’ve shown, because Stan frowned harder.

“Drop it, Bill,” Stan said firmly, and he did with a sour frown. Richie scrubbed at his face and turned away.

“Are you okay, Richie? Do you wanna stay here until you stop crying?” 

“Who’s crying?” Richie tried to joke, wiping hard at his eyes. “I’m fine. Bill’s got a point, even if it doesn’t make any sense ‘cuz we all know when I got bit by the freak-wolf. Better safe than sorry, right?”

Stan looked troubled but he backed off nonetheless. Bill looked deeply at Richie with that same intense, sad look he’d had since Georgie died, and Richie slumped. He looked… wary. Like he wasn’t sure if Richie could be trusted anymore, as if Richie hadn’t followed Bill as his fearless leader since they met in third grade. It sort of terrified him. If he couldn’t be friends with Bill anymore… what then? He wanted to get defensive, to yell at Bill that it wasn’t his fault that Georgie was dead and that he shouldn’t obsess over it so much, but the words felt stuck in his throat. Maybe he had a point, after all. 

“We should probably go back out there before everyone starts to think that we’re making out or something,” Richie said instead, hoping a joke would serve as a peace offering. Bill grit his teeth but nodded, so Richie wasn’t sure if that counted as a win or not.

“Hey,” Mike said as soon as they stepped back into the living room. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy keen, Mikey,” Richie assured, hating the way his voice shook. It didn’t seem convincing, so he threw on a Southern Belle Voice and said, “Bill was just askin’ me for a little lovin’, but I told him  _ back off, sir, ‘cuz I’m spoken for and my daddy’s got a gun out back. _ Just about had to pry him off, but I wouldn’t wanna betray my Eds, no sirree.”

He threw himself down at Eddie, watching him from the couch where his homework sat abandoned. Eddie shrieked at him to get off as Richie smacked obnoxiously loud kisses to his face. Bill remained notably silent, but didn’t argue with what Richie said, either. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

—

No teenager would say their favorite way to spend a weekend was cleaning, and that went doubly for Richie, because it was the last weekend before he turned 13. He should be  _ celebrating, _ or at least being obnoxious about not being a kid anymore. And while no one would accuse him of not being obnoxious, he certainly didn’t consider cleaning the Hanlon barn to be a party.

But because the Losers were the best people on the whole planet, they were all helping him clean. Ben had brought his boombox and Richie threw some of his tapes in there, so it ended up being kind of fun. They were all chatting mindlessly about whatever, school and spring break plans and movies coming out soon. Richie almost felt overwhelmed with it.

_ I love them. I really, really love them. _

He couldn’t say that in so many words, though, so instead he threw a rakeful of hay at Eddie and cackled as he shrieked when it hit his arm.

So cleaning wasn’t supposed to be fun. Big deal! It was impossible to have a bad time with his friends around, especially when he thought about how they were doing this for him.

From the boombox, Robert Smith cried something about six different ways inside his heart, and looking at his friends, Richie couldn’t help but agree.

—

Richie’s birthday was on a Tuesday, which was objectively the worst day for a birthday. But his mom woke him up with a cupcake and his dad offered to drive him to school extra early so he could hang out with his friends before class, so it wasn’t a bad day. It was just that the day came with the same buzzing he’d come to associate with weird wolf nights. He expected it—Eddie had made sure he was prepared for whatever would happen—but that didn’t make it any less jarring. It still felt like everything in his body was just a little bit  _ wrong, _ whether he expected it or not. 

Although, it wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as it had been before. In retrospect, the last time hadn’t been as distracting as the first time, either. Maybe he was just getting used to it, but he was almost able to ignore it entirely. Richie wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about that.

School passed by quickly, with a bland lunch and bland classes and none of the excitement having your birthday on a school day had in elementary school. His friends wished him a happy birthday and talked excitedly about the party they’d throw after school and watched a little too closely when he fidgeted in his chair, and then it was over and they were all rushing home as soon as the last bell rang. They’d somehow convinced all of their parents to let them stay out on a school night (although Richie thought Eddie might have planned to just sneak out), but everyone had to get something-or-other, so Richie just headed straight to Mike’s farm.

He realized as he walked that he’d never actually been to Mike’s place on his own before. Usually, Mike headed into town to meet them, but he and Richie had never really hung out one-on-one before, either. 

The thought was strange. How could Mike be one of his best friends—the greatest in the world for sure—without ever hanging out alone together? Richie made up his mind to change that as soon as possible.

Mike was walking through his yard when Richie showed up. He waved at Richie and smiled brightly, jogging over and gesturing for him to follow into the barn. Richie shot him a grin.

“Mikey!” he crowed. “How’s it going?”

“I’m alright,” Mike said, finally catching up with Richie. “My grandfather just let me off for the night. I think he’s glad to see me with you guys.”

Richie  _ aww _ ed obnoxiously.

“We’re glad to have you, Mike. Your grandpa better not plan on snatching you away from us anytime soon.”

“Pff, thanks, Rich. Happy birthday, by the way.”

"Shucks, Mike," Richie said, throwing a companionable arm around his shoulders. "Thanks a bunch. I think letting me use your barn is probably the best present I could get."

"That's not a gift, Richie." Mike's voice was gentle in that honest way it seemed like only he could really pull off. "That's just being a decent friend."

"Yowza," Richie mumbled, adjusting his glasses just for something to fidget with. He always forgot how stupidly  _ honest _ Mike was.

"How are you, by the way? Do you feel okay?"

"Uh, yeah, mostly. It sorta just feels all tingly and shit. It's less, uhh, distracting than it used to be."

"Maybe your body is getting used to it," Mike mused. "You said the first time was the worst, right? And that last time you remembered more? Maybe this time you'll remember even more, now that you aren't overwhelmed with how unfamiliar it is."

Huh. He hadn't thought of that. He shrugged at Mike.

"I guess we'll see," Mike said. "Do you know when everyone else is coming?" 

"Should be on their way. I think they were all stopping at home first, but I came straight from school. My parents are working late tonight, so might as well, right? We'll probably do something this weekend."

"I get it. But is everything okay?" At Richie's blank stare, Mike continued. "I mean, you were pretty upset after talking to Bill the other day, right?"

"You heard that?"

"Not really. You both just looked upset when you came back out, so I wanted to check on you. I know Bill can be brash sometimes."

"Yeah, I guess," Richie mumbled. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to say.  _ Yeah, he made me feel like shit, but I probably deserved it! _ What a joke. Mike wouldn't want to hear that shit.

He must've been too quiet, though, because Mike put a hand firmly on his shoulder and smiled gently.

"I don't know what you were talking about, but he loves you, Richie. We all do. And you're not a monster or anything, you're just our friend."

"Gee, should I tell Eds he's got competition?" Richie huffed awkwardly, and Mike laughed.

"Nah, he's got nothing to worry about. For what it’s worth, I think it’s neat that you two are together. That’s gotta take guts.”

“...Thanks, Mike.”

They didn’t talk much after that. The barn was all set up for a birthday party-slash-wolf den, so Richie busied himself by shoving as many kernels of popcorn into his mouth as possible and trying to make Mike laugh with different Voices. Soon enough, the others started showing up, and it wasn’t long until everyone was seated on the pillows and blankets thrown across the ground. 

“Hey, Richie,” Ben said, interrupting his joke about mosquitoes and Bigfoot. “Do you wanna open your presents now?”

“Sure,” he said, frowning quizzically. “I didn’t realize you guys brought presents.”

“Duh, Trashmouth, of course we did,” Bev teased. She handed him a small package wrapped in an old newspaper. “Here, do mine first.”

Never one to say no to Beverly Marsh, Richie ripped into the paper and pulled out a mixtape with flourish. He grinned at her and flipped it over to look at the tracklist.

“Miss Marsh, you’re stealing my thunder! Siouxsie and the Banshees  _ and _ R.E.M.?” He waggled the tape in front of her. “You’ve outdone yourself!”

“Glad you approve,” she replied, smiling widely. “Here, take Stanley’s next.”

They went around the group, each person giving him something small. Bill didn’t say anything past “huh-happy birthday,” but he still gave Richie a Street Fighter t-shirt, so he counted it as a win. Eddie’s VHS tape of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came with a card that he signed with “Love, Eds Eddie Eds,” which made Richie’s heart flutter obnoxiously. All of them, really, were sweet and thoughtful in a way that made him feel truly seen. He didn’t know how to deal with that, though, so he thanked them all and changed the topic as quickly as possible.

Dinner consisted solely of too many snacks from the general store. Richie felt hyper on sugar and the adrenaline that seemed to increase the later in the day it got. By the time the sun began to set, he was practically bouncing in place, rattling off voices as quickly as possible and not slowing for a second. He could feel everyone tiring of him, but he couldn’t make himself  _ stop. _ It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but it was amplified by the jittery feeling he’d had all day growing in intensity. 

He tried to remember if that had happened before, but realized after wracking his mind that he couldn’t actually remember transforming. All he could remember of February’s full moon were blurry snippets throughout the night, and that the actual process of how he got there was… nonexistent. He fidgeted with his glasses nervously.

“Hey, Eds?” Richie asked. He shifted uncomfortably when everyone turned toward him. “Do you, uh, remember how the transformation actually happens?”

“Yeah, Rich, of course,” Eddie said. He frowned at Richie, concern drawing his eyebrows together tightly. “You don’t remember what happens?”

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’. “Somewhere after you showed up my memories get all foggy, and then I don’t know what happened except for some little bits I apparently latched onto. Why, is it weird?”

“I mean obviously it’s weird, dude, are you kidding? You turn into an animal, fucking of course it’s gonna be weird.” Richie’s face must have done something funny, because Eddie softened and shrugged. “It’s okay, though. It looked like it might be painful, but it wasn’t really scary or anything. It was right around when the sun finished setting.”

Richie hadn’t considered that it might hurt. He hadn’t really thought about the transformation process at all, actually. The thought was more than a little scary.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait,” Ben said. He smiled at Richie in a way that was probably supposed to be comforting.

As it turned out, they didn’t need to wait much longer. The conversation picked up quickly, but Richie couldn’t really follow along. He was too distracted by the increased buzzing, like cicadas were in his bloodstream. As the final bit of sunlight faded away, a sharp feeling like a rubber band snap zipped through his body. He gasped as what felt like every inch of his body started to itch terribly and fell to his hands and knees.

“Richie? Are you okay?” Eddie asked. 

“Yeah, I just— _ shit! _ ”

Once again, the conversation fell to a stop, but Richie couldn’t pay attention to that. His  _ bones _ ached—shit, his bones. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before, or at least, nothing he remembered. Distantly, he realized he might have been shaking. Sobbing, too, or at least breathing hard enough that it  _ felt _ like sobbing. He didn’t have the mind to be embarrassed, though, not when he was overwhelmed with pain like that. Voices filled the silence, but he couldn’t pay enough attention to tell who was who.

“Is he okay? Eddie, is this normal?”

“I don’t know! He was sort of sleeping last time, I don’t—”

“Get away fruh-from him!”

“Jesus, Bill, I’m not gonna leave him alone right now!”

“It’s dangerous!”

“It’s not  _ dangerous, _ it’s just Richie! Are you fucking kidding me?”

“He’s right, Bill. He needs our help—”

“What can we do? It’s not like we can stop it!”

“I don’t fucking know! Comfort him, maybe? He can still hear you, assholes!”

And then there were hands on Richie—on his shoulders, on his back, on his arms, on his face—and he realized with horror that his face was dripping with both tears and sweat as Eddie cupped it and told him to take deep breaths. The Losers had all surrounded him and were just holding him, like they wanted him to feel safe. Like he wasn’t in the middle of a grotesque transformation. Like he was something worth protecting.

He wanted to take a moment to bask in it, to truly appreciate the love all of the Losers had for each other, but the thought was overridden by the realization that his body was changing its shape in real-time. His clothes felt too loose but too short, and he had barely enough sense of mind to be embarrassed about the very real possibility of his friends seeing his dick before he realized that the itchiness he felt was hair growing in a thick blanket over him. 

“Rich?” Eddie asked, and  _ oh God his hands are on my face my face is the wrong shape oh God oh fuck it hurts so bad— _ “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” he tried to say, but it came out as a warbled whimper. He nodded tightly.

“Okay. Okay, good, that’s a good sign. Hey, you’re like halfway there already! It’ll be over soon, I promise. Just try to focus on all of us, okay?” Eddie said, but his voice wavered. He wasn’t usually the one to comfort people when there wasn’t something to patch up. That responsibility usually fell to Bill, but, well. Richie didn’t think Bill would want to comfort him.

Eddie was right, though. Richie felt… stretched, but like the end might be in sight. Like his body wanted to be done with it just as badly as he did. Which was probably true, actually, based on how much it hurt. There was nothing he could do, anyways, beside grinning and bearing it. 

After some amount of time—he couldn’t tell if it had been minutes or hours—Richie found himself fully shifted. The pain receded until it was just the memory of an ache, and he shimmied awkwardly under everyone’s comforting grasps. At some point, his glasses had slipped off, but Stan had placed them carefully to the side. He squirmed out from the pile and tried not to think too hard about the way his pants just… fell off as he moved. The rest of the Losers looked up at him.

“You done, Richie?” Bev asked, and Richie barked.

He didn’t  _ mean _ to bark. He meant to say something witty, like  _ no, Beverly, I actually plan on turning into a peacock next. _ He realized very quickly, though, that he couldn’t, and smacked his jaw awkwardly, like it could make his vocal cords work again. Bev snickered at him, so he did his best to roll his eyes at her.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Hey, should we take off your shirt?”

Damn, what he wouldn’t give to be able to talk. How could he end up in a situation where his friend offered to take his shirt off but he couldn’t joke about it? That seemed absolutely unfair. 

The shirt  _ was _ uncomfortable, though. In lieu of words, he ducked his head and stretched out his… arms? Front legs? That was weird. But Bev scooted closer and the rest of the Losers followed, and it wasn’t long before his shirt was folded neatly on the floor (courtesy of Stan), mildly stretched but alright. 

_ How many Losers does it take to take off a shirt? _ Richie thought to himself.  _ Seven, because we can’t do anything by ourselves. _

He sighed. It would’ve been a great joke to make if anyone was able to understand him.

“So,” Stan said, “Richie’s transformed and conscious. And it looks like Trashmouth finally has an off button.”

Richie whined dramatically. He meant it as a joke (for the most part, at least, but no one needed to know that), but Stan must not have been fluent in wolf, because he seemed to fumble with his words.

“I’m just kidding, Richie. Do you know how weird it is not hearing your dumb jokes?” Stan said, and Richie wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him sound so unsure. He also didn’t know how to show that it was fine, so he decided to headbutt Stan in the leg. Stan patted him awkwardly on top of his head, so he figured it was probably good enough.

“What now?” Eddie asked after an uncomfortably long pause. 

Everyone shuffled awkwardly, glancing at Richie like he would have the answer. That seemed stupid to him, because he was the only one that couldn’t actually talk. 

“Do you think he’d want to fetch?” Ben mused, and Richie could practically feel the energy of the room turn absolutely evil.

“Ben, you genius,” Bev said with a grin. Everyone else seemed completely on-board with the idea, so Richie sighed as loudly as possible.

“Don’t be a sore Luh-Loser, Richie,” Bill said, and Richie… had no idea how to react. He still looked apprehensive, but he didn’t seem to be outwardly hostile, which had to count for something.

“Here,” Mike said, pulling a thin log out of a pile by the door. “Use this.”

He tossed the log across the barn, and Richie stared at him in a way that hopefully conveyed the disdain he felt. Everyone watched him expectantly until Eddie sighed.

“C’mon, Rich, you’re no fun,” Eddie complained with a pout, and—  _ fine. _ Fine!

He rolled his eyes and sighed before sprinting across the room, and huh. Running actually felt great. Not that he could ever admit that.

He grabbed at the stick with his mouth, which felt incredibly weird. But fine. The stick had been retrieved, so all he needed to do was bring at back.

And fuck with them, of course.

He ran back as fast as he could and smacked everyone in the knees with the stick. Giggles broke through the tense quiet, and finally everyone seemed to relax.

“Yeah, I guess I deserved that,” Mike laughed. “Hey, can I get that back? I promise I won’t throw it again.”

Oh, no. Richie was no quitter. He pulled away from Mike’s tugs and stepped backwards into Eddie’s waiting hands, and then Richie’s entire life changed.

He’d seen people scratch dogs behind the ears to make them drop things before, but he didn’t realize the power it actually had until Eddie did it for him. He felt like he understood  _ everything. _ He dropped the stick, sure, but what did it matter? As soon as Eddie pulled his hands away, he whined and flopped onto Eddie’s feet. Above him, he heard the other Losers laughing.

“He really isn’t any different, huh?” Ben said through giggles, and huh. Maybe he was right, actually.

They spent the rest of the evening like that, switching between silly activities and goofing off. It really wasn't all that different from their normal hangouts, save for the fact that Richie couldn't talk. It was uncomfortable and kind of stifling, but he realized he could communicate well enough by messing with them or making what sounds he could. It wasn't ideal, but it was fine. Whatever.

At some point, someone suggested truth or dare. It was late enough at night that they were getting sleepy, but not so late that they weren't all bursting with teenage energy. Richie panicked the way he always did when someone suggested truth or dare, and then realized... Huh. He didn't have anything to hide anymore, not really. Not like he could talk, anyway.

"That's a dumb suggestion, are you kidding?" Eddie asked, apparently on the same wavelength as Richie. "He can't talk, how is he supposed to answer truths?"

"Richie only picks dares anyway," Bev said. "He just doesn't get a choice this time. If that's okay with him?"

She turned to Richie expectantly. Hell, who was he to say no to a dare? He nodded his head and did his best to grin, and so the game was a go.

They gathered around into a loose circle and began the game. It started with Bev, always one of the bravest of them all. She gazed around the group deviously before settling on Mike.

"Hey, Mike," she said. "Truth or dare?"

"Uh, truth," he answered with a grin. She thought about it for a moment, and then:

"If you had to become a part of a movie, which would it be?"

"Ghostbusters, probably. I bet that would be a lot of fun." Mike glanced around the group. "Okay, Stan. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," Stan said decisively. Mike laughed.

"Alright. Who, uh, would you choose to be trapped on a deserted island with?"

"Out of everyone here?" Stan asked. He glanced critically around the room. "Ben, maybe. I think he could build a shelter so we wouldn't die."

"That's reasonable," Mike agreed. Stan nodded and glanced around the group.

"Eddie, truth or dare?"

"Truth," Eddie answered. Richie huffed.

Usually, he would say something like  _ yowza, guys, I know we're supposed to be losers, but that's a lotta truths in a row! _ when people seemed to play it too safe, and someone would reply  _ fine, Richie, truth or dare? _ so he would have to say  _ dare, obviously. _ It made him feel safer choosing dare every time, even if he thought that everyone probably saw right through him. With the way Eddie rolled his eyes at him, he assumed that was probably right.

"Who's the funniest in the group?" Stan asked with a pointed look. Eddie groaned.

"Staaannn, that's no fair," Eddie whined. "You can't let that go to his ego."

"Who says I know who you're talking about? For all I know, you could mean Bill."

"Obviously it's not Bill, Stanley, and you know it. Don't be a dick." Stan just raised his eyebrows and Eddie glared. "Fine. It's Richie, obviously. If his jokes get worse after this, it's not my fault."

That made Richie's heart stutter in his chest. The fact that Eddie thought he was the funniest of their friends made him feel like walking on a cloud or telling a particularly loud joke, but he couldn't do either of those things. Instead, he pattered over to Eddie's side and plopped his head down in his lap.

"Alright, Rich," Eddie said, scratching absently behind Richie's ears like he would sometimes play with his hair. Richie snuffed in acknowledgement. "I guess you've gotta do a dare, right?"

Richie glanced up at in a way that he hoped showed Eddie he agreed. Eddie fumbled and glanced around the group.

"Go, uh," he started, and then paused. His eyebrows furrowed as he thought of what to say. "Go... lick Bill. That's not a weird thing about being a wolf or whatever, that's just because you would do that anyways because you're gross and right now you don't have thumbs or a voice so I can't tell you to sing or anything."

Bill looked at him intensely, his face almost a frown but not quite. Like he was waiting to see what Richie would do. Richie wasn't entirely sure what to do either, but he wasn't one to back down from a dare. He stood up from Eddie's lap and walked across the circle to Bill.

Standing in front of Bill, Richie suddenly found himself full of nerves. He really shouldn't, logically, but the way he'd been acting around Richie made him conscious of every move he took. Was he threatening? Did he seem like he was going to hurt someone? Did he just seem out of control?

But then he looked at the stiffness of Bill's posture and realized he had it all wrong. Bill was one of his best friends and Richie knew logically that he didn't hate him, not really. He was just messed up about Georgie and had a protective streak about a mile long, but he didn't hate Richie. It would be okay.

With that thought in mind, he nudged Bill's arm with his nose until he lifted it to him. With a snort of wolfish laughter, Richie licked a strip up Bill's hand and then shoved his face into his armpit. Bill let out a startled yelp and Richie backed off just long enough to look Bill in the eyes before he bonked his head against Bill's chest and lay down in his lap as fully as he could without crushing him. Bill paused for a moment and then slowly, tentatively, he placed a hand on the back of Richie's neck. He patted it lightly.

"I guh-guess they were right. You're just you, huh?" Bill said quietly, and Richie relaxed. It was fine. They were all okay.

The games continued late into the night, until they were all tired out and ready to sleep before school in the morning. Eddie tossed a blanket over him so he wouldn't embarrass himself by waking up completely naked in front of all of his friends, and they all whisper-chatted until they dozed off one by one. Surrounded by all of the Losers, celebrating his birthday and making sure he felt safe, Richie thought he might never have felt happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! please leave comments and/or kudos if you enjoyed! they really fuel me, so it's much appreciated.
> 
> again, sorry for the wait. i've had scenes from this chapter in mind since i first started plotting out this fic in november, but when i tried to put them into words i hit a TERRIBLE writer's block. and then life happened (i spontaneously did a show, got very sick, and then had to surprise move out of my dorm because of quarantine) but now it's done! 
> 
> as i mentioned last time, this was actually the last proper chapter! chapter 5 will be an epilogue from eddie's perspective in the future, so stick around for that! it's mostly finished, actually, because i worked on it when i got stuck on this chapter. hopefully it'll all be worth it!


	5. you're a werewolf and i'm a full moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue. Eddie's POV, 1999
> 
> chapter title from be nice to me by the front bottoms

Richie Tozier was a strange person.

Eddie knew that as well as he knew Derry hid secrets, or that there were a bunch of new types of influenza every year, or that his mother probably (definitely) didn't treat him the way a mother should treat her child. Those were the four truths in his life: his hometown was dangerous and scary, the flu was unpredictable, something about his mother was wrong even if he might never admit it, and Richie was  _ weird _ . But Richie was weird before the wolf situation, and Eddie certainly wasn't about to abandon him just because he was  _ attacked _ . He couldn't. He wouldn’t.

What Eddie also knew was that he was nearly an hour late.

He bolted up the stairs to their apartment as quickly as he could while lugging a bag of groceries up four flights of stairs. Richie wouldn’t be mad, he was almost certain of that, but it didn’t make him feel any less guilty. Finally,  _ finally, _ he made it to their door and shoved it open, grateful for once that Richie didn’t lock it (because Richie always left it unlocked when he was home, no matter how much Eddie insisted that it was  _ Brooklyn _ and they would be  _ much _ safer if he kept it locked, because Richie just laughed and told him to relax—) and called out to his boyfriend before he even set the groceries down.

“Rich, I’m home, I’m so sorry I’m late I had this, this asshole of a customer that wouldn’t just leave me alone and then the subway was down and I— Oh.” Eddie cut his own overloud rambling off as Richie bounded out from their bedroom toward him and jumped up to his chest. “Hey, honey. You switched already, huh?”

At his feet, Richie had taken the form he did once a month: long, thin limbs stretched longer and thinner, covered in a layer of thick fur that would have made him unrecognizable to anyone who hadn’t been around for hundreds of the transformations, which meant Eddie would have recognized him in his sleep. After ten years, it was nothing new.

Richie nosed at Eddie’s hip and Eddie could barely bite back his grin. He set the bag down on the floor and toed off his shoes, pointing out everything he bought as he did.

“I got that jerky you like, so maybe you can eat some tonight? And some pasta and stuff for tomorrow night, or maybe some other week night if you wanna go out tomorrow. And, uh, detergent because I think we ran out because I saw a weird bug in my sock drawer and it was dumb but I kinda panicked and thought about what sort of stuff it could be carrying? Even though it was dead and probably didn’t matter. Anyways. I washed all of my socks, like, twice and we were already low so we ran out so I picked up some more. And some drinks and stuff.”

It was always jarring that Richie couldn’t talk when he was transformed. He was normally so  _ loud, _ and while he didn’t act very different—Richie usually ran up and jumped on Eddie as soon as he got home anyways, and he certainly wasn’t any less physically affectionate on the full moon than he was any other night—it was strange not to hear his voice. Usually, he would have cut off Eddie’s panicked rambling with something like  _ gee, Eds, didn’t realize your feet smelled  _ that  _ bad, _ and Eddie would have told him to shut up but relaxed with the knowledge that it was okay. 

But Eddie was used to full moons, or wolf nights, as Richie had taken to calling them after the novelty of it wore off and Bev told him off for making too many jokes about his “time of the month”. They’d come up with a routine that they tried to stick to as much as possible and a rudimentary system to communicate that mostly involved Richie tapping on the ground or writing notes beforehand, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was okay. 

Except that usually Eddie was there for the transformation, because that part never actually got any easier and he liked to be able to comfort Richie in any way he could through the thick of the pain. He leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Richie’s head tenderly.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he murmured, and Richie wiggled his body in a response that Eddie knew was meant to cheer him up. He laughed and stood back up. “Okay, so what’s the plan? Did you eat dinner?”

Richie tapped the floor once.  _ Yes. _ Eddie smiled at him.

“Awesome. Let me microwave some leftovers quick and then I’ll be over. We’re watching, uh, My Cousin Vinny, right?”  _ Yes. _ “Cool, I’ll set that up in a minute.”

Richie followed Eddie into the little kitchen area off of the hall and tugged at his shirt as Eddie pulled a container of day-old Hamburger Helper stroganoff out of the fridge and tossed it onto a plate. He turned back to face Richie as the microwave turned.

“Did you have a good day at work today?” he asked, and Richie huffed, letting Eddie's shirt drop to sit back on the floor. Eddie chuckled. “That bad, huh?” 

Richie whined and laid his head pitifully on Eddie’s feet. Eddie nudged his face lightly with his foot.

“That sucks. Hey, tell me all about it tomorrow, okay? You know I love hearing your radio station drama.”

Richie snorted something like a laugh, and Eddie could only imagine what sort of witty retorts he was coming up with. He'd never admit it, but Eddie wished he could hear them. He made do by leaning down to rub lightly at Richie's head even as the microwave beeped.

"You should go get comfortable. I'll bring this over and then set up the DVD, 'kay?"

Richie nodded his head and shuffled over to their couch after another playful shove at Eddie's thigh. Eddie tugged at his ear in turn as he pulled out a fork from the dishwasher  _ (all clean and warm, like Richie was trying to get them done before Eddie got home but got interrupted by the sunset). _ Eddie sighed to himself.

Full moons weren't his favorite by far. It was frustrating to struggle to communicate with Richie and it always upset Eddie to think about how much pain Richie was in as he transformed, even when he insisted he was used to it. Still, it was just another part of Richie, so he loved it too. And staying inside watching movies snuggled up on the couch and play-wrestling was never a  _ bad _ thing, wolf or no wolf. So no, he didn't hate full moons, even if it meant he'd have to wait until morning to kiss Richie and was sort of a hassle.

Richie whined from the room over, and Eddie laughed to himself. He carried his plate into the living room and pressed a kiss to the top of Richie's head as he shuffled past to grab the DVD. As soon as it started playing, Richie squeezed under Eddie's arm and sprawled across his lap. Eddie sighed, halfway between exasperated and adoring, and resituated so he could actually eat dinner while holding Richie. He watched idly as the '64 Buick Skylark rolled down the Alabama highway onscreen and squeezed Richie closer.

Sure, he wasn't exactly "normal", and he certainly wasn't perfect. But that didn't mean there was anything  _ wrong _ with Richie, because Eddie knew he'd wake up the next day to Richie doing his best  _ (worst) _ New York accent asking about grits, and Eddie would draw him into a sleepy kiss like he did every morning, just because it was their apartment and he loved him and wanted to. And Eddie had his quirks, too, like his aversion to germs and his rapid-fire way of rambling and the way he stole Richie's shirts to sleep in on nights like these. He didn't see why Richie was any different. He loved Richie, he really did. Not in spite of being a werewolf or his silly Voices or his big glasses or any other thing Richie seemed to dislike about himself, but as well as.  _ Including _ all those little things, in the same way he knew Richie loved him. Wholly, despite nothing. As it should be, and as it would hopefully stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it!!! thank you for reading! please please please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed, it means a lot! 
> 
> this is officially the longest thing i've ever written and it was difficult but i was determined to finish it. i've got a few more projects i'm working on now, so if you liked this, keep your eyes out for that! and because i think i forgot to say it anywhere else, you can find me at @deaiswarlock on twitter or @jortsbian on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> >:)  
> please leave comments/kudos if you enjoyed! i already have a solid chunk of chapter 2 written, but with finals going on right now im not sure when exactly it'll be up. but im very excited for this fic even if its objectively a terrible idea for me to write it because i am absolutely terrified of dogs :')) good decisions only!


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